Forest exports. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Wood related 
     
     trades. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Seasonal 
     
     activities in 
     
     the woods. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Wood products. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Co ws in 
     
     the woods. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Wood clearance 
     
     alterna ti ves. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Increase in 
     
     timber trade. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Commerce, Some persons have carried on a considerable trade in the cod and 
     
     herring fisheries; and lumber, oil, skins, and furs, to England. [p. 6] 
     
    
   
   
    
     Inhabitants and general Employment. . The generality of the inhabitants are 
     
     employed in farming, except a very few mechanics, such as blacksmiths, carpenters, 
     
     Shipwrights, millwrights, coopers [p. 6] 
     
    
   
   
    
     Between seed-time and harvest, some are employed in burning the wood that has 
     
     been cut in the winter for clearing new land in the Winter, some are employed in 
     
     cutting the trees down for clearing new land; some in cutting and bringing home 
     
     their fire-wood and making lumber, such as shingles, laths, hoops, staves, &c. And 
     
     cutting and carrying pine-logs for the saw-mills. many families make two or three 
     
     hundred weight of sugar, in the early part of the Spring, before the snow is thawed 
     
     in the woods, from the sap of the maple trees; [pp. 6-7] 
     
    
   
   
    
     General Remarks. This Island, which possesses so many natural advantages, such 
     
     as good soil, the finest water, a clear air, good harbours, and fine rivers, with 
     
     abundance of fish and wild—fowl, and good timber for house and ship-building, and 
     
     furniture [p. 7] 
     
    
   
   
    
     Spruce beer, and rum and water, are the general liquors that are drunk here, except 
     
     water and milk [p. 10] 
     
     if the farm is an entire woodland farm, the cows will find sufficient food in the 
     
     woods, in the Summer and Autumn, and come regularly home to be milked, by 
     
     keeping the calves up [p. 11] 
     
    
   
   
    
     the most difficult part of his farm is to begin to clear away the woods. This 
     
     labour is differently pursued, according to the judgement of different persons: some 
     
     grub up the small trees and underwood by the roots; these are burnt on the ground; 
     
     and the large trees they girdle, by cutting a rim of the bark round the tree, which kills 
     
     it, and lets in the sun to the ground; they then plant potatoes and grain between the 
     
     trees: but for the most part, the inhabitants cut all the trees down from two to three 
     
     feet above the ground, and cut them into ten or twelve foot lengths, and pile and burn 
     
     them. But some think the best way is, to take a crop or two at most off the ground, 
     
     and then lay it down to grass; and in a few years, the roots of the stumps will get 
     
     sufficiently rotten, so that a man or two, with two pair of bullocks, and a chain fixed 
     
     round the top of the stumps, will get up as many in a day as they would in a month 
     
     were they to attempt it when the stumps were green. [pp. 11-12] 
     
    
   
   
    
     [Addendum to the 7818 edition]: 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Trade of the Island has also much increased [since 7805]. From forty to fifty sail 
     
     of shipping have been annually loaded with timber for Great Britain these some years 
     
     past; and there has likewise been a considerable export of cattle, sheep, lumber, grain 
     
     and potatoes, to the neighbouring Colonies of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and 
     
     some to the West Indies, in vessels built and owned by persons on this Island. This 
     
     occasions a considerable demand and employment for industrious labourers, both in 
     
     farming, and loading the Timber Ships, &c. and more especially for those who can use 
     
     the axe — an art which is very soon acquired. [p. 16] 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     1. A printing earlier than 1805 is cited by Holman (1987) as: A description of the Island of St. John in the Gulf 
     
    
   
   
    
     of St. Laurence, North America. . . 
     
    
   
   
    
     Holman gives ’1798?’ as the possible date of this edition, but since the 1805 
     
    
   
   
    
     edition (p. 10) quotes prices of commodities on the Island current in the autumn of 1795, 1796 may be a more likely 
     
     date. The 1805 edition appears to be a straight reprint of this earlier edition except for an altered title page. There 
     
     appear to be two different 1818 print runs — one [UPE|: P.E.l. FC 2617.1 D48 1805c] is a straight reprint of the 
     
     1805 edition with the cover page still bearing the 1805 date — the only clue to its later printing is the addendum on 
     
     p. 18 which lists “current prices for cattle and provisions for the year 1818". But there is also a version labelled 
     
     ’Third edition, with additions’ with the 1818 date on it [UPEl: P.E.l. FC 2617.1 D48]. 
     
    
   
   
    
     61