1885.] SUPPLIES OF TIMBER FROM ABROAD. 183 



several years back, prices for first quality yellow pine being even 

 at the present time about 3s. to 3s. 3cl. per cubic foot in London, 

 which almost prohibits its use for anything but fancy purposes. An 

 attempt is now being made to substitute the Califoruian redwood 

 {Sequoia) for yellow pine, and so far the trial has apparently been 

 successful. 



With regard, however, to the spruce of Canada, New Brunswick, 

 and Nova Scotia, the North American demand for this rough but 

 cheap wood has as yet made no appreciable call on the spruce 

 region of Canada east of Montreal, or still less from New Bruns- 

 wick and Nova Scotia. A future reversal of the protectionist 

 policy of the United States might alter this. For the present, 

 it is sufficient for spruce consumers and growers in this country to 

 bear in mind that spruce reproduces itself with great rapidity, that 

 it grows on poor land that will not pay to plough, and that a forest 

 cut to, say, eleven or twelve inches to-day will be ready again for 

 the axe in twenty years or so. Besides all this, as long as ordinary 

 spruce deals can be had alongside ship in Liverpool at about six 

 guineas per 165 cubic feet, growers of timber in this country need 

 not compete. This equals about 9d. per cubic foot in Liverpool, or, 

 say, 5^d. per cubic foot in Canada, loaded on board ship. If we 

 deduct cost of sawing and handling, we shall find that the Canadian 

 lumbermen actually ohtain no more for their spruce logs, calculated 

 in the round at the mill, than about 3d. per cubic foot ! Were the 

 supply so near an end as many interested people would have us 

 believe, we should either have to pay much higher prices, or do 

 without the goods. The quantity of spruce imported into the 

 United Kingdom, in a sawn state alone, reaches about 6,700,000 

 loads, and constitutes at present our largest supply of this cheap 

 wood. 



Speaking generally, it may be said that the wood imported from 

 the north of the United States is principally confined to wood- 

 ware, or specialities in building timber, such as doors, mouldings and 

 other home-fittings ; with a small quantity of oak, elm, maple, and 

 ash, either hewn or in planks. A large quantity of walnut has 

 also lately been obtained from the Atlantic ports, but this does not 

 come into direct competition with British-grown wood. The great 

 bulk of tlie timber we receive from the United States is pitch pine 

 from the Southern States, mostly east of the Mississippi river. The 

 importation of this highly resinous and heavy softwood is of com- 

 paratively modern origin, but the quantity available is so large, the 

 dimensions the wood can be delivered in so satisfactory, and the 

 price so moderate, comparatively speaking, that it has already been 

 substituted to some extent for North German and Swedish wood. 



