Notes. 189 



37,000,000 board feet. Moreover, a large part — over 24,000,000 

 board feet — of the wood cut goes to outside mills; therefore, 

 the actual excess of wood consumed over the amount received 

 from this region is over 61,000,000 board feet, and constitutes 

 nearly 20 per cent, of the wood consumed in Northern New 

 Hampshire. This is explained by the fact that most of the 

 pulp companies are preserving their own supply of timber, pre- 

 ferring to draw upon an outside source, chiefly Canada, and 

 that the demand for wood, especially spruce, is greatly in excess 

 of the supply. 



The wood consumed by pulp mills in Northern New Hamp- 

 shire from 1st July, 1902, to 30th June, 1903, was 271,604 cords, 

 138,131 cords or 50.9 per cent, being from that district, 101,911 

 cords or 37.5 per cent, from Canada, and 31,562 cords or 11.6 

 per cent, from Maine. 



The combined holdings of timberland by pulp and paper 

 mills in Northern New Hampshire are 488,290 acres. This 

 acreage includes the great bulk of virgin timberland in the 

 region. The owners are thoroughly alive to the importance and 

 farsightedness of a policy of perpetuating their supply of timber 

 and, as a means to this end, with a view to cutting as little as 

 possible from their ji own land^t^at^ present, they are getting a 

 large part of their supply from farmers' wood lots and Canada. 



The question was asked the various pulp mill owners as to 

 the length of time the present supply of spruce might be ex- 

 pected to last, and also as to the substitution of another species 

 for pulp when the supply should have been exhausted. Their 

 replies certainly indicate that they are not anticipating a spruce 

 famine in the near future, and that they will not worry over 

 a substitute for spruce until the available supply of spruce in 

 Canada is exhausted. 



Forest fires have done considerable damage in different 

 localities during the late summer. 



As the result of bush fires in Nova Scotia the village of 

 Belmont was almost wiped out of existence in the latter part 

 of August. Newspaper reports give the damage at $35,000, 

 and it was also stated that there would no doubt be consider- 

 able distress amongst a number of the losers, some of them 

 having nothing left but the clothing they wore. There had been 

 no rain for some time, and everything was dry enough to burn 

 easily. High winds caused the fires to spread and considerable 

 damage was done in other localities. One fire is stated to have 

 been caused by the gross carelessness of one person, who was 

 trying to clear some land and fired it when the wind was blow- 

 ing a gale. 



