The Forest and Man 37 



This, however, was not what the home govern- 

 ment had intended. They wanted to benefit Great 

 Britain, not the colonies, and now England bought 

 most of her naval stores in the East as before, 

 while the colonies grew rich by supplying foreign- 

 ers. Next followed a series of measures intended 

 to restrict the trade in lumber and naval stores. 

 As early as 1665 Edward Randolph was made 

 " surveyor of the woods and timbers of Maine " at 

 a salary of fifty pounds per annum. The office 

 seems to have been a sinecure, for at a later time 

 Governor Bellamont said that Randolph " never 

 did a sixpence work." In 1691 the office of " Sur- 

 veyor-General of the Woods " was established, 

 covering all the provinces of which Bellamont was 

 Governor. At first Randolph held this place, but 

 a few years later his successor, Bridger, entered 

 on a quarter-century of what the colonists consid- 

 ered " pernicious activity." His duties were to 

 see that no masts were exported without a license ; 

 that no waste of timber was permitted ; and espe- 

 cially that no trees reserved for the royal navy 

 were cut. In the various grants of land by the 

 government provisions were usually inserted re- 

 serving all pines of twenty-four inches in diameter 

 at twelve inches from the ground. By the Massa- 

 chusetts charter of 1691, the cutting of such trees 

 on land not included in grants to private parties 

 was also prohibited. The surveyor was to mark 

 these trees with the famous sign of the broad ar- 

 row. The penalty for cutting a marked tree was 



