The fact is not generally known, but the information has been purchased at a dear rate, that the purchase of lumber for the foreign market by board-measure, instead of cubic, involves a heavy loss. In European markets all lumber is sold by the cubic foot, so that the cost of sawing is completely thrown away. Black walnut, for example, cannot be laid down in Detroit, or any lake port, under $18 to $20 per M., while the lumber can be obtained for $125 to $150 per M. cubic feet, 1,000 feet cubic measure being equal to 12,000 feet board measure. Thus in purchasing by cubic measure, the buyer pays only $125 to $150 for an amount that by board measure would cost $216 to $240, making a clear difference of _ninety dollars_ upon only one thousand cubic feet, equal to $900 upon a cargo of some of the vessels engaged in the trade last year. The same rule would apply substantially to other kinds of lumber. Independent of this, a decided preference is given to lumber in the log, owing to the good condition in which it can be delivered. There is one more point which manufacturers as well as shippers should bear in mind. The value of much of the lumber sent out was greatly impaired by being attached to the heart, which is the most porous part of the tree, and therefore most liable to crack. To obviate this objection the saw should pass upon each side of the heart, thus leaving the whole of it attached to a single piece of timber, instead of one or more pieces, and thereby making only one cull. By observing this rule a difference will be made in the market of thirty or forty per cent. Are staves or lumber the more profitable to ship? This depends upon circumstances. Last year it was very dull for both. For staves especially the season could not, for various reasons, have been more unfavorable. In the first place, the grape crop was a very short one, not only in France, but in all the vine countries, including the Canaries. This, of course, greatly lessened the demand for staves, and there were consequently very few taken from England to France, although French vessels are in the habit of taking them for ballast at a merely nominal rate, owing to the difficulty they experience in procuring return freights from England. The short crops in Canada and the great scarcity of money, forced an unusual number of laborers in that country into the stave and lumber business. Under advices that heavy shipments were in prospect, coupled with the general check upon business on account of the war, prices became depressed. Notwithstanding all this, the shipments hence, being early in the market, sold to advantage, and may therefore be considered as a signal success, under the circumstances. The smallest vessel going out from here netted a freight of $3,500.