126 OF WOOD IN GENERAL. 



million acres, there are now only 62 million, 32 million of which 

 are under license to cut timber. The species are mostly the same 

 as those of New Brunswick, including White Pine and a scarce 

 but valuable Oak (Que'rcus alba). The wood-pulp industry has 

 grown from an annual value of 160,000 sterling in 1890 to 

 nearly ten times that amount ; and a service of rangers has been 

 organized to prevent forest-fires. In Ontario lumbering has 

 ceased to be the sole industry that it once was ; but almost the 

 whole amount felled is exported, and the demand of the adjoining 

 States of the Union keeps the annual consumption far in excess 

 of the increment. Though two-thirds of British Columbia, or 

 about 110 million acres, were under timber in 1874, and almost 

 all was under Government control, destructive fires and Avholesale 

 clearing have very much lessened the supply. There is, however, 

 a very extensive timber reserve on the coast, consisting of Douglas 

 Fir (Pseudotsaga Dougldsii), Spruce, Red Cedar (Juniperusvirginidna), 

 Yellow Cedar (Cuprcssus nootlcattnsis), and Hemlock (Tsi/ga Merten- 

 sidwi,), the available supply of which is from 40,000 to 100,000 

 million feet. British Columbia has now a wooded area 

 estimated at 285,000 square miles, extending along the coast, 

 river-valleys, and foot-hills as far north as Alaska, and producing 

 many useful species besides the Douglas Spruce. There are, 

 however, sixty saw-mills in operation, with an annual capacity 

 of 550 million feet. 



In the early days of its occupation by the French, the forests of 

 Eastern Canada, which then stretched unbroken from the 

 Atlantic to the head of the St. Lawrence basin, a distance of 

 over 2000 miles, engaged the attention of the Government, 

 who drew from them large numbers of masts and spars for their 

 navy and issued stringent regulations for the preservation of the 

 Oak. On the conquest of the country by Great Britain, which 

 then had almost the entire trade with the Baltic, Canadian lum- 

 ber was neglected ; but the continental blockade during the war 

 with Napoleon directed the attention of our timber importers to 

 the resources of Canada, and an import of 2600 loads in 1800 

 grew to one of 125,300 loads in 1810, and over 300,000 loads in 



