38 USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



method in England at that time, was carried on little, if at all, in 

 New England. It appears not to have been the actual cut of the 

 mills, but the waste, which constituted the serious drain on the for- 

 ests. It was claimed that only one tree in four was saved, the others 

 being destroyed. Only the best trees, and the best parts of the best 

 trees, were taken. It frequently happened that half a log was cut 

 off and thrown away as slabs. At Bangor the accumulation of slabs 

 thrown into the river was so great that the channel was blocked, 

 and passageways for vessels were cleared at great cost. Slabs Avere 

 not the only part thrown into the river, for it is on record that so 

 much good lumber was dumped in the stream that a boy in one sum- 

 mer was able to drag out enough to build a house. The markets 

 where the early white-pine lumbermen found sale for their com- 

 modity demanded the highest quality, and the mill men met the 

 demand with little regard for the resulting waste. In 1700 the New 

 Hampshire lumbermen met, without recorded complaint, the de- 

 mands of a market which insisted upon having white-pine planks 

 25 feet long and 15 or 18 inches wide, and for ship decks 36 feet 

 long and 3 feet wide. 



Early records are not available showing consecutive yearly exports 

 of white pine from the different parts of New England, but isolated 

 items are known. In 1671 the exports from New Hampshire totaled 

 200,000 tons of planks and pipe staves. In 1699 a timber trade began 

 with Portugal, and it called forth most vigorous protests from mer- 

 chants in England, who insisted that the colonists should do their 

 trading through mercantile agencies in the mother country. The 

 aggregate of the Portugal transactions does not appear to have been 

 large, compared with modern lumber operations. One of the most 

 vigorous protests was called forth when a New England ship captain 

 at an expenditure of only $300 cleared $1,600 by carrying lumber to 

 Portugal. His report of possibilities caused a sensation among the 

 owners of white-pine lumber, and five vessels went to Portugal in 

 one fleet carrying masts, spars, and other ship timbers. Reports of 

 the exports to Portugal for six years, 1712-1718, when figured out by 

 modern measurements, did not much exceed 2,000,000 feet, or one 

 modern shipload scarcely enough, it would seem, to justify an angry 

 controversy between the merchants in England and the white-pine 

 lumbermen in America. 



More than a century ago the French botanist, Michaux, speaking 

 particularly of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, said 

 that the white-pine lumberman kept 25 or 30 years in advance of the 

 farmer, his meaning being that the land was stripped of its pine 

 that long before it was brought under cultivation. He had in mind 

 the constant western movement of settlements. His observation might 

 need amendment before it could be applied in all parts of the white- 



