To-day the descendants of French colonists of different periods number something over eighty thousand. About 1762 some families from New England settled at Maugerville, Sheffield, and Gagetown, and hither in the Revolutionary time came emissaries from the American “patriots,” only just failing in the attempt to bring the St. John country under the “Stars and Stripes.” But they did fail, and along the banks of the river there settled a few years later a host of the defeated, but not subdued, Americans, who held that true liberty was still possible within the circle of the British Empire. These set to work with energy to tame the wilderness, and build the new British state of New Brunswick; and still all along the river and in many another district of the province are to be found their descendants, bearing the old names written a century and a quarter ago on the muster-rolls of the Loyalists. Hardships they had to endure in plenty, but they were happy at least in the fact that their country of refuge was a land richly blessed of nature. In fact, it has been calculated that New Brunswick could well support seventeen times her present population, which is about equal to that of the city of Bristol. The three chief industries of the province are farming, fishing and lumbering. Masts were the first article of export, and for years the people almost lived by the timber trade. Even not very long ago this industry brought $10,000,000 (nearly £2,000,000) into the province yearly, of which one-third was paid out in wages; and upon its prosperity depends the well-being of many not directly engaged in it. Since the introduction of iron vessels, the dependent industry of shipbuilding has declined, but new uses are continually being discovered for wood, increasing the value of all sources of supply. These have been recklessly reduced by greed, blunders and largely preventible accidents, but New Brunswick still possesses noble forests, and, perhaps, since the new day of deliberate “conservation” has dawned, may continue to possess them indefinitely. The provincial government owns over 10,000 square miles of forest; but the greater part of this has been rented upon certain conditions for the cutting of timber, and the rents and dues thus collected bring in a considerable revenue to the public coffers. In 1906 it amounted to $250,000 (£50,000). Originally almost the whole of the province was covered with magnificent trees. For long, white pine was the only wood valued for export, and now little pine remains; but since the manufacture of paper from pulpwood began, a new value has been put upon the once despised spruce which, it has been said, grows in New Brunswick “like a weed,” on lands where farmers would be predestined to failure. Nowadays, however, immigrants are not permitted to settle on such lands, for it is realized that their doing so will be of benefit neither to themselves nor to the province.