CLKAUIM; IJrsii LANDS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. 23 



the steamboats. Since then the price has risen to from $6 to $10 per cord. It is 

 not used by the steamboats on the Lower Eraser to any extent now, but it is still 

 used sometimes on the Interior rivers, and there is a good market for it also in 

 many of the small towns. 



A new settler on a bush clearing is hardly likely to have a team and wagon 

 the first year, so he will have to depend on his neighbours for hauling the cord- 

 wood. This is usually done in the early summer and should start as soon as the 

 roads are dry enough to stand heavy loads. In making a contract for this there 

 should always be a stipulation that all the wood shall be removed from the clearing 

 by July 15th at the latest, and delivered on the river-bank, or wherever the cordwood 

 market is, not later than September 15th, otherwise it will have to be left to the 

 following year, when it will have slightly deteriorated. The reason for having it 

 removed from the clearing by July 15th is that until it is removed it is not safe 

 to burn any of the log-heaps from last year's clearing, and it is often convenient 

 to be able to burn these at any time the weather is suitable and before it gets too dry, 

 as. if left too late, -the fire may run over parts of the newly seeded ground. In 

 cutting this cordwood it should all be cut and split the winter or spring following 

 the burning and hauled the following summer. Saw it into 4-foot lengths and split 

 up everything that will make cordwood. Old fir logs, if not too dozy, and all the 

 second-growth fir, hemlock, and spruce, or even a few big cottonwoods or alder, 

 will not be amiss. All hardwood, such as alder, maple, cottonwood, etc., should be 

 split. Do not cut anything too small to split. Fir, hemlock, etc., need not be split 

 unless it is too big otherwise. The reason for this is that the hardwoods, if unsplit, 

 will go dozy in a few months; that is, there is an incipient .rot, which greatly 

 deteriorates the wood. This is particularly the case with alder ; this does not apply 

 to any of the coniferous woods. In the case of green trees, carefully pile all the 

 branches and tops in one big heap against an old stump, if possible. The cordwood 

 should be neatly piled in piles 4 feet high and 8, 12, or 16 or 32 feet long, so as to 

 make it easy to measure. Don't pile it in little promiscuous heaps; the man who is 

 going to haul it likes to know how many cords he is going to haul. 



A cord of wood is 8 feet long and 4 feet high, the sticks of wood themselves being 

 4 feet long, so that each cord of wood contains 128 cubic feet. When wood is piled 

 on the river-bank for delivery to the steamboats, it is usually put up in three-cord 

 piles, each pile being 16 feet long by 6 feet high ; with the wood being 4 feet long, 

 this makes 384 cubic feet to each pile, or three cords. 



It is suggested that the cordwood will all be cut after the land has been slashed 

 and burnt over, but if the settler has a fairly large piece of land it will often 

 pay to split a certain amount of wood during the winter in the green timber after 

 the sawing-up and other suggested winter work has been done. This makes less 

 chopping later on, and less burning, and it should not be forgotten that the smaller 

 the amount of coniferous woods that are burned on the ground the better. Hard- 

 woods do not matter, as the ashes enrich the soil ; but there are very few ashes from 

 the coniferous woods and the fire gets so hot that it burns the humus from the 

 top soil and sometimes spoils it for two or three years. 



In the Lower Fraser Valley it would not, of course, pay to cut anything into 

 cordwood that will make ties or saw-logs, so that, as far as the coniferous timbers 

 are concerned, this means that the only wood available for cordwood would be the 

 old first-growth logs and green standing trees, less than, say, 10 inches in diameter. 

 It is safe to say that anything of a greater diameter would be more valnahle for 

 other purposes than cordwood; but this rule does not hold good in many other parts 

 of the Province. 



If the land which is being cleared is outside of what might be called the cord- 

 wood 01- shingle-bolt belt, say more than three and a half miles from the market 

 or shipping-point, it would he as well only to cut down the second-growth fir over 

 an area as large as would he wanted for hay on a 20-acre farm, say r, acres, and on 

 a ln-aere farm say 10 acres. If it is intended to dairy, speaking generally, about 



