THE LUMBER TRADE. 
271 
vegetables which feed it and its domestic animals, but the slov¬ 
enly husbandry of the border settler soon exhausts the lux¬ 
uriance of his first fields, and compels him to remove his 
household gods to a fresher soil. With growing numbers, too, 
come the many arts for which wood is the material. The 
demands of the near and the distant market for this product 
excite the cupidity of the hardy forester, and a few years of 
that wild industry of which Springer’s “ Forest Life and For¬ 
est Trees ” so vividly depicts the dangers and the triumphs, 
suffice to rob the most inaccessible glens of their fairest orna¬ 
ments. The value of timber increases with its dimensions in 
almost geometrical proportion, and the tallest, most vigorous, 
and most symmetrical trees fall the first sacrifice. This is a 
fortunate circumstance for the remainder of the wood; for the 
impatient lumberman contents himself with felling a few of 
the best trees, and then hurries on to take his tithe of still 
virgin groves. 
The unparalleled facilities for internal navigation, afforded 
by the numerous rivers of the present and former British colo¬ 
nial possessions in North America, have proved very fatal to 
the forests of that continent. Quebec has become a centre for 
a lumber trade, which, in the bulk of its material, and, conse¬ 
quently, in the tonnage required for its transportation, rivals 
the commerce of the greatest European cities. Immense rafts 
are collected at Quebec from the great Lakes, from the Ottawa, 
and from all the other tributaries which unite to swell the cur¬ 
rent of the St. Lawrence and help it to struggle against its 
mighty tides.* Ships, of burden formerly undreamed of, have 
been built to convey the timber to the markets of Europe, and 
during the summer months the St. Lawrence is almost as 
which may by this means be arrested before it acquires a destructive 
velocity and force. 
* The tide rises at Quebec to the height of twenty-five feet, and when 
it is aided by a northeast wind, it flows with almost irresistible violence. 
Rafts containing several hundred thousand cubic feet ot timber are often 
caught by the flood tide, torn to pieces, and dispersed for miles along the 
shores. 
