PROCEEDINGS OF THE LUMBERER. 97 



upon It, and a small log-house, but no barn. He has 

 built a barn and added to his clearing, and if seasons 

 come round, he should do well. 



We passed houses and clearings, however, which were 

 altogether deserted. This was partly owing to the fail- 

 ures in the crops, which have ruined so many of all classes 

 in Ireland as well as here ; partly to the failure of the 

 lumber-trade, and to the debts and mortgages in which 

 the small farmers, by engaging in this trade, had gradu- 

 ally become involved. 



A stranger does not readily comprehend how a depres- 

 sion in the lumber-trade should seriously affect the inte- 

 rests of the rural population in any other way than in 

 lessening the demand for produce, and in lowering prices. 

 And it was not till I had been longer in the country, and 

 conversed with many persons on the subject, that I was 

 enabled clearly to separate, in my own mind, the evils 

 which this trade had brought upon the rural population 

 from those which were necessarily attendant upon the 

 calling of a farmer. 



In lumbering, a man goes into the woods in winter, 

 cuts down trees, and hauls them to a brook, down which, 

 when the spring freshets come, he can float them to the 

 main river, and then to the saw-mills of the merchant to 

 w^hom he sells them. If a man does this upon his own 

 farm, or at no great distance from it, and by the aid of 

 his own family only, all he gets for his wood is pure 

 gain — if, in the mean time, he has been living on the 

 produce of his own farm. 



But if he goes to a distance from his own farm, and 

 has been obliged to hire labourers, or has done so with 

 the view of enlarging his operations, he must apply to 

 the merchant for an advance of stores adequate to the 

 winter's consumption. The cost of these stores, and the 

 wages of his men, are deducted from the value of the 



VOL. I. a 



