enclosures“, before subsequent loading into the

timber ships.544 Hill also refers to the presence of sawmills in various communities for cutting ”plank and board” — though he does not mention the cutting of ’deals’, a larger size of plank that was the principal form in which sawn lumber was exported to Britain from British North America.545

There was evidently much wastage of material at various stages of the harvesting process. Thomas Curtis (1775) derided the practice that he observed at the New London settlement of cutting the trees off level with the snow ”be at what depth it will” so that ”the remaining stump is almost sure to stand in the way at some future time". More understandable perhaps, the best trees (of whatever species was being harvested) were selected: ”culling out the finest trees in different parts" is the phrase used by Stewart (1783), and a century later 'culling’ was still the word generally used in connection with the activities of ”the lumbermen” by witnesses to the

5‘3 “Peake's Boom" at Three Rivers is mentioned on one of the

dockets in the Peake Business Papers (1836); and the ‘Miminegash Account Book‘ (see footnote 542), records payments (p. 53) to Thomas Rix for “taking raft to boom", and (p. 65) to John Costain for “rafting logs to boom" and "labour at boom". Then the act of the island's House of Assembly in 1843 mentioned in the above footnote, makes reference to ‘booms’, some in connection with sawmills (The OED (Oxford 1989) deﬁnes a boom: “in the [North] American lumber trade: a line of ﬂoating timber stretched across a river or round an area of water to retain ﬂoating logs".)

5“ [Hill] (1819) said that there was employment for “industrious labourers in loading the Timber Ships". He also said that in Richmond Bay ‘vessels‘ (presumably the timber ships bound for Great Britain) usually completed their loading about a mile inside Fishery [now Fish] Island, while Lawson (1851) in describing Cascumpec Bay, said that “the water is so deep, and the shore so

bold, that a large vessel can load timber a few yards from the bank?

5‘5 Lower (1973) (p. 251) deﬁnes a deal as “any thick plank, historically of three inches thickness or more", and usually more than seven inches wide and six feet long. The ﬁrst mention of deals that l have come across in island records are as part of the

cargo of two ships sailing from the island to London on 15 June 1807: the Peggy loaded “130 Deals of different thickness", while the Elizabeth Ann loaded “586 Deals of different lengths and thickness" (FARO: RC. 9: Collector of Customs. Shipping outwards, all points (1802-1827)]. ‘Deals‘ are also referred to in island legislation of the 18405: 6 Victoria C. IX of 1843 mentions ‘deals' in connection with rafts — see footnote 542 above,); while another act ofthe Assembly in 1849 (12 Victoria C. XIX) regulating “the Survey of Timber and Lumber' stated that all merchantable deals were to be at least 12 feet long and not less than 9 inches wide and 2 inches thick, and that "Dimension Deals" were to be 12, 14, 16, 18 or 21 feet long and 9 or 11 inches wide and 2 or 3 inches thick. I note also that Greenhill & Giffard (1967) (p. 110) cite an 1830 letter from Thomas Chanter (at Bideford in England) to William Ellis (the shipbuilder at Bideford in Lot 12) requesting that 'deals‘ "12 feet long Nine inches wide & 3 inches thick" be included in the cargo of a particular ship, they to be cut from “some clean saw logs very cheap of black spruce“.

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two Land Commissions“. MacGregor (1828) explained to his British readership the necessity of such a selection: referring to ”the trees cut down for the timber of commerce” (i.e. for export), he said that the ’lumberers’ chose the trees that they considered the most suitable, and "not one in ten thousand is esteemed so” — surely an exaggeration! He said that the high cost of shipping them across the Atlantic also justified the ’hewing’ of the timber square so that the ship could carry ”the greatest quantity” — unlike, he said, the practice in England where round logs were delivered to the mill.547 If we can apply generally what Peter Stewart (1783) said about a particular site in Lot 34 near the Hillsborough River, the end result of such selective timber harvesting was a forest left ”miserably mangled”

and a land ”much hurt”.

Of the persons directly involved in the activity there is ample evidence that tenant and freehold farmers cut timber from their own lands to sell to timber and/or store merchants and/or to the proprietors, in a barter economy“, as well as

sometimes illicitly from the unoccupied land in the

5‘5 Land Commission 1860: evidence of John McKay, Lot 3; Mr.

Hockin, Lot 3; and Strang Hart, Lot 7; Land Commission (1875): evidence of James Mooreshed, Lot 10; David Sullivan, Lot 13; Donald Campbell, Lot 16; Patrick Cox, Lot 35; and R. P. Haythorne, agent for the MacDonald estate in Lots 35 and 36. Lawson (1851) also refers to "culling out the best of the ship and other timber". It is interesting that throughout the historical period ‘to cull' seems to have meant to select the best trees (rather than selecting the trees for rejection) — the OED. (Oxford 1989) gives the basic meaning of ‘culling' as ‘selecting‘.

5" As Lower (1973) (p. 23) points out, squaring a log resulted in the loss of a minimum of 36% of the wood, often, he says, the best part of the log, leaving the heart section, with whatever rot, knots, and ‘shakes‘ had been exposed in the squaring. Greater than 36% is lost if the squared log was to have the same dimensions throughout (as was stipulated by the island‘s House of Assembly (1773-1849) in 1820 and 1849 for ton timber of less than sixteen feet long).

5“ Hill (1319) says in four different contexts that this was a common practice. Also a written “memorial" from the tenants of Lot 22 submitted to the Land Commission (1860), noted that “on [some] townships the rent is [often] taken in lumber procured on the farm of the tenant". As well, there is speciﬁc and detailed evidence for this practice in those rentbooks that survive in the PARO - where not only the payment of the rent with timber or lumber by named tenants is recorded, but also the type of tree that was harvested is sometimes stated. The account books of J. C, Morris of Granville (Morris 1864-1868) are an example of a store merchant accepting timber and lumber in payment for store goods, and I would think that many of those delivering wood to James Peake‘s timber business were also small farmers harvesting from their own land (Peake Business Papers 1836). See also the ‘Miminegash Account Book’ [PARO, Acc, 2593/12] for records of numerous individuals from along the western shore of the island between Miminegash and Lot 7 bringing timber in to an unidentiﬁed merchant in the 18505.