AMERICAN PINES. 63 



the woods of the United States, this species of tim- 

 ber has been almost entirely consumed in the thickly- 

 peopled districts ; so that those who are engaged in 

 the business of cutting down the trees have to pass 

 the greater part of their time in remote forests, where 

 the white pine is still found. United in small bands, 

 they penetrate into the woods in the depth of winter, 

 having previously in the summer visited the same 

 places to prepare a stock of hay for their oxen. They 

 build themselves huts, roofed with bark ; and though 

 the ground is covered five or six feet deep with snow, 

 and the mercury in the thermometer is sometimes 

 eighteen or twenty degrees below the freezing point, 

 they apply themselves with the utmost courage and 

 perseverance to felling the trees. Cutting them into 

 logs about eighteen feet long, they convey them, in 

 the district of Maine, by means of their oxen, which 

 are admirably trained, to the bank of the Kennebeck 

 river, where they roll them upon the ice. Before the 

 spring, when the frost breaks up, many thousands of 

 these logs are thus collected. They are then carried 

 down the current to Wenslow, about one hundred 

 miles from the sea, at which place, the logs being 

 previously marked, the owners are enabled to select 

 the produce of their respective labours. The timber 

 is here sold to the proprietors of numerous saw-mills 

 established on the Kennebeck, between ^Venslow and 

 the coast ; and from tliis point comes most of the 

 American white deal which we use in England*. 



A great quantity of fir timber is brought to Great 

 Britain from our North American colony of New 

 Brunswick. The timber trade with this thriving 

 colony has been somewhat forced, and is now very 

 dull. In 1824, the exports of timber from New 

 Brunswick to England, and the ships built at St. 

 John's, amounted in value to more than half a mil- 

 • See Michaux, vol. i., Art. Pinus strobus. 



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