17. In the Woods
BY ANDREW BURNABY
(1760)[41]
ONE of the chief articles for exportation are masts for the royal
navy. These are made of white pine, and are, I believe, the finest in the
world, many of them forty yards long, and as many inches in diameter.
They never cut them down but in times of deep snow, as it
would be impossible in any other season to get them down to the river.
When the trees are fallen, they put on seventy or eighty yoke of oxen,
and drag them along the snow. It is exceedingly difficult to put them
first in motion, which they call raising them. When they have once
effected this, they never stop upon any account whatsoever till they
arrive at the water side.
Frequently some of the oxen are taken ill; upon which they
immediately cut them out of the gears, and are sometimes obliged, I am
told, to sacrifice five or six yoke of them.
The forests, where these masts grow, are reserved to the
crown, which appoints a surveyor of them, commonly the governor of
this province.
This is not the only expedient employed by government for
the preservation of such trees as may be of use for the royal navy.
There is an act of parliament, I believe, which prohibits, under pain of
certain fines and penalties, the cutting down, or destroying, of any
white pine tree, of specified dimensions, growing outside the
boundaries of any town, without his majesty's license, in any of the
provinces of New England, New York, or New Jersey.
This restriction is absolutely necessary, whether considered as
securing a provision for the navy,[42] or
as
a check upon that very destructive practice, taken from the Indians, of
fire-hunting. It used to be the custom for large companies to go into the
woods in the winter, and to set fire to the brush and underwood in a
circle of several miles. This circle gradually contracting itself, the deer,
and other wild animals inclosed, naturally retired from the flames, till
at length they got herded together in a very small compass.
Then, blinded and suffocated by the smoke, and scorched by
the fire, which every moment came nearer to them, they forced their
way, under the greatest trepidation and dismay, through the flames. As
soon as they got into the open daylight again, they were shot by the
hunters, who stood without and were in readiness to fire upon them.
The trees included within the circle, although not absolutely
burnt down, were so dried and injured that they never vegetated any
more; and the fire not only contracted itself inwardly, but also dilated
outwardly, and sometimes continued burning for several
weeks, till rain or some accidental circumstance put it out; there is no
measuring the injury and devastation it occasioned in the woods.
I was once a spectator of a similar fire in Virginia, which had
happened through accident. Nothing could be more awful and
tremendous than the sight. It was of great extent, and burned several
weeks before the inhabitants could subdue it. They effected it at last by
cutting away the underwood in wide and long avenues, to leeward of
the fire, by which it was prevented from communicating or spreading
any farther. In Virginia there is an express act of assembly, passed in
the 12th year of his late majesty, to forbid this practice.
[[41]]
Burnaby was an English traveller who saw much
that other people missed.
[[42]]
When the Revolution cut off the supply of great
trees, it is said that many British ships were lost because they could no
longer get good masts.
