55 



GRAIN (for engraving) Bass, arbutus, and dogwood. 



DURABILITY In dry works, cedar, oak, poplar, pine, chestnut ; exposed 

 to weather, larch ; and in wet works, white cedar, birch, hemlock, elm, 

 alder, beech, oak, and plane. 



MINOR PRODUCTS OF THE FOREST. 

 POT AND PEARL ASHES. 



In the early days of the settlement of Canada, and clearance of lana, 

 the greater part of the wood felled was burned on the spot, and from the 

 residue of the fires was manufactured pot and pearl ash. But since wood 

 has become more valuable, as it decreased in quantity, potash works in 

 the forest have been for the most part abandoned, and the business is 

 now confined to factories for its especial manufacture. The last census 

 returns show that in 1881 there were 225 of these factories, employing 

 467 hands and the value of their product is given at $345,096. In 1883 

 the exports of pot and pearl ash were 7,801 barrels, valued at $208,055. 



HEMLOCK BARK EXTRACT. 



The manufacture of this extract for tanning purposes especially in the 

 Eastern Townships of -the Province of Quebec where hemlock abounds 

 is assuming large proportions, and it is far better to manufacture the bark 

 into a merchantable article of current value at the place of growth, than 

 to send it bulky as it is in the rough to foreign markets. The census of 

 1881 enumerates 4 factories, employing 140 hands, and places the value 

 of their products at $286,250. According to the Customs Returns in 1881 

 the exports of extract amounted to $190,068, in 1882 $234,908, and 

 in 1883 $305,426, whilst of plain bark besides the value of exports 

 was $481.758, $431,562, $321,991, in the three years respectively. To 

 manufacture it the bark is put through a process of leaching and then 

 the principal watery portion is evaporated, so that a concentrated solu- 

 tion of tannin is the result. The wholesale destruction of hemlock trees 

 for the manufacture of extract threatens to seriously diminish the future 

 supply of hemlock, a wood that will become more and more useful as 

 pine disappears. In a report of a Committee of Parliament as far back 

 as 1868 it was estimated that an extent of 10,000 acres of the best hem- 

 lock land was stripped every year for the means of supplying with bark 

 the extract factories, the timber being left to rot in the ground. 



TURPEXTIXE. 



Turpentine which with pitch and tar constitutes one of the chief 

 products of the pine forests of the Southern States, has never been 

 obtained in any quantity here, though there is no reason why our pine 

 forests should not furnish us with a large quantity annually if proper 

 measures were taken to produce and procure it. During the civil war in 

 the United States the price of turpentine rose to three times its previous 



