Plctou— the only source for sa wn boards.

Local alternatives to Pic tou:

Pit—sawing the wood on Lot 35.

Malpec.

Winter River.

L0! 27.

Seasoning hardwood species.

a good one when your Carpenter shall have marked the proper trees to be cut, I should think some of the french would be good hands for assisting him to cut, square, float & bring them to the Spot, and also for helping him to make the frame, lay the Joists and Logs and bind the roof couples — Your own bullocks & any common hired man may draw the timber to the water side, and up from the shore to the house.

At the same time that you hire the Carpenter you will need to think of the best way to get boards, clap boards or feather edged boards and Shingles I should think you would need from six to ten thousand feet of boards of different length and thickness — from ten to twelve thousand shingles and I cannot guess how much clap boards or feather edged boards & lathing — Pictou is the only place I can think of where you may get these materials [pp. 2-3]

From the idea I have I should think geting Boards, Shingles, & clap boards, so quickly as you could wish, will be the most difficult part of the materials, besides the Expence and distance from Pictou — But there is no help for it.

After all, from six to ten thousand feet of Boards is not a very great Quantity. If you find a difficulty of geting them from Pictou, what if you would get a parcel of the french to saw them for you at the Winter River if there is Wood there & that Mr Callbeck restores Lot 35 — If the Wood is good & if the french would undertake it, four good sawyers would not be long sawing ten thousand feet, — there would be this Advantage in it that the Boards might be sawed of the exact length & thickness that the Carpenter would order, so that there would be less waste & refuse stuff than by geting them from Pictou, and as they would be near at hand it might be very little dearer upon the whole than those from Pictou would be with freight and refuse stuff.

If you cannot get them in this manner perhaps the french at Malpec would engage to deliver you the Boards at a certain price per thousand feet at Tracady. They have wood there, and also schooners for carrying them to your place, and perhaps they would also undertake for the Shingles, Clap Boards & Laths, or that you might get them made at the Winter River —— or it would be an ease if you had only Shingles to get from Pictou — or in case you could not get the french at Malpec to do it, perhaps you could get them or some others to make the Boards Shingles Clap Boards & Laths on Mr Clark’s Lot 21 where there are plenty of the best timber and he would not begrudge me any thing [pp. 5-6]

I should like that, as soon as your other hurry would permit, some twenty or thirty thick logs from Eight to twelve feet long of the best black Birch and half that number of the best large white poplar, and the like of beech and maple were cut, & by degrees brought to a seasoning place, for we will by & bye find use for them for Chairs & other uses, and it will be fine to have seasoned to our hands. Ip. 6]