154 



THE TIMBER RESOURCES AND TIMBER TRADE OF CANADA.* 



From the geographical position of Canada and the United States, and the 

 natural and artificial routes of transportation that exist along the line, and 

 across the boundary between them, it is reasonable to expect that the interests 

 of trade will, in the future as in the past, draw from the timber resources of 

 both countries for their respective wants, so long as either of them has these 

 commodities to supply Besides this common interest in the forests, for meeting 

 the demand for consumption, both countries have, for a long period, been com- 

 petitors in the foreign lumber and timber trade, and have shared alike in the 

 vicissitudes that have attended it. 



It therefore appears proper to present in connection with the statistics already 

 given concerning our foreign commerce in forest products, as full information as 

 can be derived from official and trustworthy sources, as to the nature and extent 

 of this business in Canada, extending back to the date of the present Dominion 

 Government, and in some instances to an earlier period. The series of tables 

 that we present will sufficiently represent the tendencies of the trade during the 

 years they embrace, and its extent as compared one Province with another, and 

 in different years. 



The great prominence of the timber interest of Canada has in recent years 

 led to thoughtful inquiries into the extent of these resources, a synopsis of 

 which will be first presented. 



INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE TIMBER INTERESTS OF CANADA. 



A Select Standing Committee on Immigration and Colonization, appointed 

 by the Dominion Parliament, has at recent sessions thought proper to institute 

 inquiries having reference to the condition of the forests of the country, and 

 the extent, value, and prospects of the lumber trade. The chairman in the 

 session of 1878, ^Mr. James Trow,) in introducing the subject remarked: 



That the actual condition of the timber supply of the Dominion was a 

 subject of the utmost importance, and one that deserved the special attention of 

 the committee. It involved not merely the prosperity of the greatest of the 

 manufacturing industries of the country, and the main staple of its foreign 

 commerce, but exercised also a controlling influence in regulating the extent of 

 future settlements, in as much as the forests tempered the climate by rendering 

 it more equable maintained the regular flow in rivers by preventing inunda- 

 tions, and furnished new settlements with the cheapest building material and 

 fuel. 



Mr. Stewart Thayne, an English journalist of some years' experience, who 

 had for the last five years been engaged in researches having reference to the 

 lumber interest, and who had been for two and a half years exclusively engaged 

 in studying this subject of timber resources in Canada, appeared before the 

 committee, and gave in substance the following information : 



' The advantages which Great Britain derives from the Canadian supply of 

 timber are numerous, the principal being : 



1. The best quality of Canadian pine is the most valued of the soft woods, 

 used in the United Kingdom. 



2. The dimensions of the soft woods shipped from Canada are larger than/ 

 can be procured from the timber-producing countries of Europe 



*F. B. Hough : Report upon Forestry (U. S.) 1878-79. 



