1885.] 



THE TRANSPORT OF TIMBER. 



247 



TffU TRANSPORT OF TIMBER. 



THE American sawmills, established long before anything of a 

 similar kind in England, showed that cheap transport is the 

 basis of any profitable wood industry. The present perfection of 

 mechanical appliances in the lumber domain liegan witli the splendid 

 water-carriage-ways given of the great rivers of the United States 

 and Canada. These, though accompanied by such timber jams as is 

 depicted in the accompanying woodcut, far outrival any railroad 

 facilities of transport. 



The ease with v^hich logs may be thus taken fiom the Iciest to the 

 sawmill, and afterwards to the seaboard for exportation, is the 

 foundation of the great Canadian timber trade. Dull times appear 

 to be putting more sj)rags in its chariot-wheels of progress. But 

 this shutting down the vacuum breaks will be only the greatest 

 national blessing if, as Forest cmd Stream says, the Canadian and 

 United States Legislatures at last open their eyes to the folly of 

 alienating public forests for a dollar and a quarter an acre, which it 

 will be impossible to replace ten years hence at fifty dollars an 

 acre. But the British landowner is handicapped by his only 

 available carriers, the great railway companies, and is at present in 

 a sorry pliglit. Xotices of biUs for the purpose of increasing rates, 

 specially terminals, have been lodged by these great corporations, 

 which, if carried, will render the transport of home-grown timber 

 unremunerative. If the prospects of successful improvement of 

 estates by forestal enterprise are not to vanish as chimeras, 

 instant decided action must be taken. 



