468 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



molasses; dinner ia usually the same, with pease- 

 soup in place of tea; and the supper resembles 

 breakfast. These men are enormous eaters, and 

 they also drink great quantities of ram, which 

 they scarcely ever dilute. Immediately after 

 breakfast, they divide into three gangs: one of 

 which cuts down the trees, another hews them, 

 and the third is employed with the oxen in 

 hauling the timber, either to one general road 

 leading to the banks of the nearest stream, or at 

 once to the stream itself; fallen trees and other 

 impediments in the way of the oxen are cut 

 away with an axe. 



" The whole winter is thus spent in unremitting 

 labour : the snow covers the ground from two to 

 three feet from the setting in of winter until 

 A-pril; and, in the middle of fir forests, often till 

 the middle of May. When the snow begins to 

 dissolve in April, the rivers swell, or, according 

 to the lumberer's phrase, the freshets come down. 

 At this time all the timber cut during winter is 

 thrown into the water, and floated down until 

 the river becomes sufficiently wide to make the 

 whole into one or more rafts. The water at this 

 period is exceedingly cold; yet for weeks the 

 lumberers are in it from morning till night, and 

 it is seldom less than a month and a half, from 

 the time that floating the timber down the 

 streams commences, until the rafts are delivered 

 to the merchants. No course of life can under- 

 mine the constitution more than that of a lum- 

 berer and raftsman. The winter snow and frost, 

 although severe, are nothing to endure in com- 

 parison to the extreme coldness of the snow 

 water of the freshets; in which the lumberer 

 is, day after day, wet up to the middle, and often 

 immersed from head to foot. The very vitals 

 are thus chilled and sapped; and the intense heat 

 of the summer sun, a transition which almost 

 immediately follows, must further weaken and 

 reduce the whole fi-ame. To stimulate the 

 organs, in order to . sustain the cold, these men 

 swallow immoderate quantities of ardent spirits, 

 and habits of drunkenness are the usual conse- 

 quence. Their moral character, with few excep- 

 tions, is dishonest and worthless. I believe there 

 are few people in the world on whose promises 

 less faith can be placed than on those of a lum- 

 berer. In Canada, where they are longer in 

 bringing down their rafts, and have more idle 

 time, their character, if possible, is of a stiU more 

 shuffling and rascally description. Premature 

 old age, and shortness of days, form the inevitable 

 fate of a lumberer. Should he even save a little 

 money, which is very seldom the case, and be 

 enabled for the last few years of life to exist 

 without incessant labour, he becomes the victim 

 of rheumatisms and all the miseries of a broken 

 constitution. But, notwithstanding all the toils 

 of such a pursuit, those who once adopt the life 

 of a lumberer seem fond of it. They are in a 



great measure as independent, in their own way, 

 as the Indians. In New Brunswick, and parti- 

 cularly in Canada, the epithet 'lumberer' is 

 considered synonymous with a character of spend- 

 thrift, and' villanous and vagabond principles. 

 After selling and delivering up their rafts, they 

 pass some weeks in idle indulgence; drinking, 

 smoking, and dashing off, in a long coat, flashy 

 waistcoat, and trowers, Wellington or Hessian 

 boots, a handkerchief of many colours round the 

 neck, a watch with a long tinsel chain and 

 numberless brass seals, and an umbrella. Before 

 winter they retui-n again to the woods, and 

 resume the pursuits of the preceding year. Some 

 exceptions, however, I have known to this gener- 

 ally true character of lumberers. Many young 

 men of steady habits, who went from Prince 

 Edward's island, and other places, to Miramichi, 

 for the express purpose of making money, have 

 joined the lumbering parties for two or three 

 years, and, after saving their earnings, returned 

 and purchased lands, on which they now live 

 very comfortably." 



The "lumberers" of New Brunswick, and 

 those who cut down the timber of the woods of 

 the United States, select the firs of proper girth 

 and quality with especial care. It is stated by 

 Mr M'Gregor, that not one tree in ten thousand 

 is fit for purposes of commerce. These thinnings, 

 therefore, of the woods of North America do not 

 produce the destruction of timber which now 

 forms a subject of complaint in that country of 

 forest trees. The indiscriminate clearings of the 

 agricultural settlers, and the conflagi'ations which 

 occasionally take place, are the causes which, in 

 a few centuries, may render North America no 

 longer an exporting country for timber. Some- 

 times the forests are injudiciously set on fire by 

 the settlers, to save the labour of cutting 

 and partially burning ; but by such indiscrimi- 

 nate conflagration, the land is not properlj^ 

 cleared, and a very strong and noxious plant, 

 called the fire- weed, instantly springsup, exhaust- 

 ing all the fertility of the ground. Sometimes 

 these conflagrations extend over the whole face 

 of a country, producing the most fearful destruc- 

 tion of life and property. The spectacle of a 

 burning forest, according to the accounts of those 

 who have witnessed it, is most sublime. The 

 flames leap from tree to tree, and rushing up to 

 their tops, throw out immense volumes of fire 

 from the thick clouds of smoke that hang over 

 the burning mass, while the falling trees come 

 down vdth the most tremendous crash. One of 

 the most destructive of these fires took place a 

 few years ago in New Brunswick. We extract 

 an account of this calamity from Mr M'Gregor's 

 work : — 



" In October 1826, upwards of a hundred miles 

 of the country, on the north side of Miramichi 

 river, became a scene of the most dreadful con- 



