1907 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. 183 



U. S. Timber Supplies. 



A. "I visited the United States in 1836 for the express purpose of ascer- 

 taining at the ports of New York and Boston, what encouragement there 

 might be for the importation of manufactured Canada timber, and also 

 with a view to ascertain what supply of pine and spruce timber might yet 

 remain in the United States. With the exception of the State of Maine 

 to the North upon our own border, and of Georgia to the South, at a great 

 distance from us, which latter produces an article of very inferior quality, 

 I became satisfied from very careful inquiry that very little timber of that 

 sort remains in the States generally, and that even with the two exceptions 

 I have named, the supply will be exhausted in a few years, provided that 

 the demand continues to increase as it has done for many^years past, along 

 with the progressive prosperity of the Americans." 



Q. "Is the quantity of the best kind of pine, spruce, and oak timber, 

 the property of the Crown of this Province, very considerable?" 



A. "I believe it to be so, particularly in the country bordering on the 

 Ottawa, the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, a great distance on the 

 shore of the Saguenay and its tributaries, on the north shore below Quebec, 

 and in the district of Gaspe ; sufficient in fact to supply the demand of the 

 United States for many years to come, and if not sold under prices such as 

 might easily be obtained, if better communication was opened with the 

 United States, as to produce a very large revenue." 



Q. "Even at the present low rate of timber licenses, is it not often 

 more advantageous to purchase the land where the timber is growing, than 

 to purchase a license to cut the timber upon it?" 



License vs. Purchase. 



A. It is so decidedly upon well-timbered tracts. I have been employed 

 myself to purchase land with this view. It may be conceived that this is 

 the case" when in the districts where land is purchased with this object, the 

 price of a license would amount on the average to about 6s. 8d. per acre, 

 and the average price of land is only about 3s. 2d. per acre. You therefore 

 get your timber at less than half price, and have the land remaining when 

 the timber is cut. For example, last year a saw-mill proprietor had cut 

 timber upon a 200 acre lot in which I was interested, in one of the town- 

 ships south of St. Lawrence. I seized the timber which he had cut, and 

 entered into an agreement with him, by which I received fully 10s. an acre 

 for the trespass upon the timber, allowing him to take all he had actually 

 felled." 



Q. "What is the upset price of Crown Land in that township?" 



A. "Four shillings. I bought for myself and others all the Clergy 

 lieserves then open for sale in that township in 1836, amounting to about 

 1,800 acres, at an upset price of 4s. an acre." 



Q. "If such be the case, however, any such rise as you appear to con- 

 template in the price of timber licenses, ought to be accompanied by a cor- 

 responding rise in the price of the wild land of the Crown?" 



A. "Undoubtedly so." 



These utterances, like those which follow, are alike interesting from the 

 historical point of view and significant in their bearing upon the existing 

 situation, as showing how even at that comparatively early date, the Ameri- 

 can demand for the product of Canadian forests had become a prominent 

 factor in determining the value of our natural resources. When the neair 



13 L.M. 



