iug is in connection with the manufacture of square pine and board, (or 

 octagonal) pine timber, especially the former, in squaring which and in the rejec- 

 tion of the upper portion of the tree where the limbs begin- fully one-third of the 

 tree is wasted, viz., one-sixth of the best of the timber in siding off to reach the 

 square, and one-sixth of the upper part of the tree which is left in the woods, but 

 which if drawn, would be valuable at a saw-mill, where it could be cut into 

 various qualities of lumber, either fit for domestic use or export. The waste 

 referred to has been noticed by this department for years past, but under the 

 regulations past and present and the tenure under which licenses to cut timber 

 are held, and have been held for many years, it is found difficult to uproot a 

 system which has obtained so long, and in which there are so many vested 

 interests and so much capital involved. 



PRODUCTION OF TIMBER IN CANADA, 1890. 



The following table taken from the Statistical Year Book of Canada (1891), p. 14, gives the 

 production of timber in the whole of Canada during the year 1890 : 



* Traverses. * *Trans- Atlantic shipments only, t Included in square timber. Rafting pins. 



|| Pulp and bobbin wood included. Laths. 



THE ONTARIO FIRE ACT. 



The following Act (Cap. 213, KS.O.) was passed by the Legislature of Ontario 

 in 1878, with the view of preventing the occurrence of the fires which have 

 wrought so much devastation among the forests ot the Province : 



