Morning journal and courier., 1886-05-12
The F1.nber-Falntne Scare.
From the Manufacturers Gazette

The scare about timber famine in New England and Canada is simply nonsense at the present day. If the timber is so far e1- hausted as some of the orators at forestry
 gsthr.;-ors would have us believe, if the cost ot reproducing -i---k4AA5ar,t4 La T115oI1 such an expenditure of money, time and in-
 terest as the above figures indicate, why then is there not ready sale of timber tracts now
 seeking purchasers in the Province of Que bee for instance? We enumerate half dozen properties in Lower Canada now being offered at beggarly sums of money as com pared with their intrinsic value. We know of one property embracing nearly one hun dred thousand acres in extent, heavily wooded with spruce, cedar and hard woods, with some scattering pine, situated within twenty miles of a railroad controlled by the Boston and Maine railroad, located on driva- ! ble waters to the sea coast, in fine, healthy, agricultural country, that can be bought in I fee simple for less than seventy cents per acre. less than the seed would cost to SOW an acre of forest trees. We know another we'll watered, we'll timbered tract of land embra- | cling over four hundred thousand acres, car | rying a growth of at least two billion five | hundred million feet of spruce, pine, tama- ! rack and hard woods on a large river flowing l into the St. Lawrence river, whence the ! freight to Liverpool is but twelve dollars and ! a half per standard Yet this forest, almost | primeval in it's character, can be bought to- | day for one hundred thousand dollars with l long credit on part of the purchase money. | Five to six cents per log is to be paid to the | Canadian government the trees cut, as | stunpage dues. Who wants to buy two billion five hundred million feet of accessi- | ble timber for less than five cents per thou
 sand feets Who among practical men can | ,INar fop 0vybor, %paa nxU growing, and upward of one hundred years | old on an average, can be bought standing at ! less than cent apiece? Still another tract l of timber land, virgin in its character, upon l which never thousand trees have been cut, | entirely accessible, lying for forty miles in a | continuous body on both sides of drivable l river larger than the Merrimac, and embra- cing nearly one hundred and fifty thousand l acres, can be bought to day at thirty five
 thousand dollars, the only condition being
 that the Canadian government shall receive stumpage dues of five cents per log as the
 trees are cut for market Equally desirable
 areas of similar land situated on the St. l Lawrence river waters upon which no cut
 tings have been made can be bought, one of
 thirty thousand acres for fifteen thousand l dollars and one of eighteen thousand acres
 for ten thousand dollars. Who wants to in
 vest in American forests at fifty to seventy
 cents per acre, already grown and ready for the woodman's axe, now that the timber
 famine' is impendings We have heard a
 forestry expertD predict that before 189C
 America would be importing her lumber
 from Sweden and Norway! Even under
 those appalling circumstances we will come
 under heavy bonds to sell him sufficient tim
 ber now growing on American soil and oI
 navigable waters, to load (after manufacture)
 sixty of the largest timber vessels afoat, fol
 the bare freight on one cargo of deals be l tween Norway and America, The demand | @f |1ooh hOY11- iaf fnrf antS mn
 alone. Nine tenths of the forestry experts on the platform and in the library have bu
 an inadequate idea of the vast timber re
 sources of the continent Let these "fores
 try experts" who are continually criticisinl
 our articles in these columns, exhibit de ! sire to purchase some full grown forest land
 at fifty cents to two dollars per acre (whicl
 they claim are worth fifty to one hundre
 dollars per acre), and we will secure fo
 them as many acres as they can pay for.