STUMPAGE IN NEW BRUNSWICK AND MAINE. 159 



hundred vessels are said to be sometimes lying at its 

 wharves at once, engaged chiefly in the coasting trade, 

 and making voyages of three or four weeks duration. 



There are, or were, two reasons why the trade of the 

 river should be carried on from the American, rather 

 than the British side, and why, as a consequence, the 

 larger quantity of shipping should be found there. 



First, The duties upon timber imported from the 

 provinces into the United States being great, and 

 especially on sawn or manufactured timber, most of the 

 mills are situated on the American side ; and it is so 

 contrived that, in floating down the river, much of the 

 timber that is cut in New Brunswick lands in Maine, 

 and thus avoids the duty. 



Many of the American lumber-merchants hold timber- 

 lots in New Brunswick tracts of country, that is, on 

 which, for a certain payment, they have obtained the 

 sole right of cutting timber. In New Brunswick, the 

 Government charge for this right here called stumpaye 

 is very low, being only 10s. for a square mile, and 

 afterwards Is. a ton upon all wood exported. In Maine, 

 on the other hand, the State charge for t timber-land, or 

 the stumpage, is from 10s. to 15s. a thousand feet for 

 pine, and 5s. to 7s. 6d. for all spruce which is cut and 

 sent to market ; and this amounts, where the timber is 

 good, to as much as 800 a square mile ! This great 

 difference in the price of woodlands, merely separated by 

 a river, has naturally given rise to much eager speculation. 

 Individuals have obtained large grants on the New 

 Brunswick side for 10s., and have again sold them to 

 merchants from the American side for several hundred 

 pounds a square mile making thus much money 

 through an improvident regulation of the Provincial 

 Legislature. The American purchasers contrive, in 

 floating the wood down the head-waters, to put an 

 American mark upon it, and thus save duty by landing 



