The words _lumber_ and _lumbering_, which convey no very definite idea to us, have in Canada and the United States a large and important meaning. _Lumber_ is the general name for all kinds of timber, not only while growing in the form of stately trees, but after it is cut down, and even after it has been rudely fashioned into such pieces as may be convenient for shipment. So, in like measure, _lumbering_ may be taken as a general name for all the operations whereby the timber is brought into a marketable state; including the cutting down of the trees; the conveyance to the saw-mills; the sawing them into boards, planks, joists, and other pieces; the forming them into rafts: and the navigating of these rafts down the creeks and rivers to the seaports. All the persons employed in these operations are designated _lumberers_; and they are subdivided into smaller groups according to the duties they undertake to perform. As the practice of lumbering has been carried on for a great number of years, all the forests in the vicinity of seaports have been denuded of their trees: and the lumberers have therefore to go far inland to obtain their supply of timber. This occasions one circle of operations to last an entire year, from summer to summer. As the lumberers who dwell in the interior frequently carry on some other occupation, perhaps an agricultural one, they cut down trees in the forest just as it suits their convenience, during the summer and autumn. These trees are either hewn and shaped into balks and beams, or divided into shorter pieces, according as they are to be exported whole, or sawed up into boards and scantlings for the American or Canadian markets.