When residing in the city of Quebec, in the year 1859-60, I published a series of articles in the Quebec Advertiser, descriptive of the hardwoods of Ontario. The lumber merchants of that city held then, that their correspondents in Liverpool was so wedded to old-fashioned ideas, that they would not so much as look at any price-list except for pine and the few other woods for which there was an assured demand. But I know that my papers were transmitted home, and they may possibly have converted some few readers, as, since then, our rock elm, our white ash, and the black birch of Lower Canada, have been in increased demand, and are regularly quoted at London and Liverpool. But even though old country dealers should make light of our products, that is no reason why we should undervalue them ourselves.
Not merely is our larger timber improvidently wasted, but the smaller kinds, such as blue beech, ironwood or hornbeam, buttonwood or plane tree, and red and white cedar, are swept away without a thought of their great marketable value in the Old World.[7]
It seems absolute fatuity to allow this waste of our natural wealth to go on unheeded. We send our pine across the Atlantic, as if it were the most valuable wood that we have, instead of being, as it really is, amongst the most inferior. From our eastern seaports white oak is shipped in the form of staves chiefly, also some ash, birch and elm. So far well. But what about the millions of tons of hardwood of all kinds which we destroy annually for fuel, and which ought to realize, if exported, four times as many millions of dollars?
Besides the plain, straight-grained timber which we heedlessly burn up to get it out of the way, there are our ornamental woods—our beautiful curled and bird's eye maple, our waved ash, our serviceable butternut or yellow walnut, our comely cherry, and even our exquisite black walnut, all doomed to the same perdition. Little of this waste would occur if once the owners of land knew that a market could be got for their timber. Cheese and butter factories for export, have already spread over the land—why not furniture factories also? Why not warm ourselves with the coal of Nova Scotia, of Manitoba, and, by-and-by, of the Saskatchewan, and spare our forest treasures for nobler uses? Would not this whole question be a fitting subject for the appointment of a competent parliamentary commission?
To me these reflections are not the birth of to-day, but date from my bush residence in the township of Nottawasaga. If I should succeed now in bringing them effectively before my fellow Canadians ere it is too late, I shall feel that I have neither thought nor written in vain.
CHAPTER XIX.
A MELANCHOLY TALE.
The Scottish settlers in Nottawasaga were respectable, God-fearing, and though somewhat stern in their manners, thoroughly estimable people on the whole. They married young, had numerous families, and taught their children at an early age the duties of good citizenship, and the religious principles of their Presbyterian forefathers.
Among them, not the prettiest certainly, but the most amiable and beloved, was Flora McDiarmid, a tall, bright-complexioned lass of twenty, perhaps, who was the chief mainstay of her widowed father, whose log shanty she kept in perfect order as far as their simple resources permitted, while she exercised a vigilant watch over her younger brothers and sisters, and with their assistance contrived to work their four acre allotment to good advantage.
Wherever there was trouble in the settlement, or mirth afoot, Flora was sure to be there, nursing the sick, cheering the unhappy, helping to provide the good things for the simple feast,—she was, in fact, the life of the somewhat dull and overworked community. Was the minister from afar to be received with due honour, was the sober church service to be celebrated in a shanty with becoming propriety—Flora was ever on hand, at the head of all the other lassies, guiding and directing everything, and in so kindly and cheerful a way that none thought of disputing her behests or hesitating at their fulfilment.