They have been granted a new lease of life and may be found moored at the wharfs, beached on the marine railways, or anchored in the stream, eagerly awaiting their turn to refit.

It is a matter of vital concern that the freight on spruce boards from Bangor to New York has increased to five dollars a thousand feet.

Many of these craft belong to grandfatherly skippers who dared not venture past Cape Cod in December, lest the venerable Matilda Emerson or the valetudinarian Joshua R.Coggswell should open up and founder in a blow.

During the winter storms these skippers used to hug the kitchen stove in bleak farmhouses until spring came and they could put to sea again.

The rigor of circumstances, however, forced others to seek for trade the whole year through.