4 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



money received for masts, tar, etc., shipped to England, 

 amounting to £1,368 i6s. id.; also, an invoice of serges, cloth, 

 rugs, and blankets to be disposed of to procure masts.^ 



All the early accounts credit New Hampshire and parts of 

 Maine with the finest timber for masts. Robert Mason in his 

 "Account of New Hampshire," in 1671, says: "They export 

 200,000 tons of deal and pipe staves and ten ship-loads of masts 

 yearly.''* The infinite abundance and large size of the trees, to- 

 gether with the nearness of the forests to the Piscataqua, set- 

 tled the question of the chief source of the mast supply in the 

 American colonies, if the difficulties in the way of importing 

 from so great a distance could be met, so as to make such an 

 enterprise pay. There was good timber in New York, — in fact, 

 a ship-load arrived in England from that province in 1675, ^""^ 

 was pronounced at the navy yard at Deptford very good of its 

 kind;-'' but the export from New York never compared with 

 that from New Hampshire, owing, probably, to the difficulties 

 of water-carriage. 



Massachusetts yielded pine trees and other timber, to a cer- 

 tain extent, which were traded off to other colonies for sugar or 

 tobacco; and there seems to have been a considerable quantity 

 of tar and pitch made, but probably not for exportation. In 

 1672, it was enacted that the townsmen of Plymouth should be 

 allowed to make annually ten barrels of tar, and no more."* No 

 reason is given for this restriction, which, if not removed, must 

 have fallen into abeyance, for in the "Notes on Plymouth," 

 published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the follow- 

 ing memorandum is made against the date, 1687: "Tar, at this 

 period, was made in quantities: notices of it frequently occur 

 as being accepted in payment of salaries, 'as it shall be sold at 

 Boston;' it continued to be made in less quantity, down to 

 1750."= 



^Calendar, Vol. 119, Sect. 202, Annex II, III. 

 -Calendar, (1669-1674), Sect. 87. 



■'Calendar, Letter to Gov. Andros, Vol. 119, Sect. 669. 

 *Mass. Hist. Society Publications, "Notes on Plymouth," Second 

 Series, Vol. III. 

 nbid. 



