116 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



Bridger's successor, further informed the Board, in 1721, that 

 he had found in New Hampshire upwards of 25,000 logs cut, 

 two-thirds of them being from 24 to 30 inches in diameter, and 

 20 feet long. They had been brought to the saw-mills to be 

 sawn into planks. He believed that, where one mast was sent 

 home, five hundred were cut or destroyed;^ and that owing to 

 the unfortunate wording of the act of Parliament,- ("not being 

 the property of any private persons") the evasion of the law by 

 the laying out of townships, was increasing; which, he said, 

 was a practice that ought to be prohibited. He enclosed a list 

 of the exports of New Hampshire for the year 1718-19, to show 

 how injurious the lumber trade was to the interests of the king- 

 dom.' This list included: 



912,331 boards. 78.450 pipe staves. 



1,014 oal^ planks. 654 pine planks. 



615,050 shingles. 518 spars. 



199 masts. 43 yards. 



171 bowsprits. 485 oak timbers. 



60,072 joists. ^3.905 oar rafters. 



63,950 barrel staves. 171,660 hogshead staves. 



5j5I5 (ft.) square timber. y^i knees. 



171 anchor stocks. 26,910 (ft.) oak planks. 



32,141 (ft.) best pine plank. 11,000 clapboards. 



In 1722, the act was passed which removed the duty from 

 timber.* The fifth clause dealt with the preservation of white 

 pine trees, in view of the fact that the laws already made for 

 those trees had been found insufticient. Apparently, it was not 

 thought possible to insist that a township was not to be re- 

 garded as a private person, for the clause read: "No white pine 

 not growing within any township shall be cut, felled or de- 

 stroyed without His Majesty's license first had or obtained." 

 A graduated scale of penalties was attached, according to the 



^Mr. Armstrong to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., X: 47. 

 ^9 Anne, c. 22. 



^Mr. Armstrong to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., X: 47. 

 *8 Geo. I, c. 12. 



