Sure. Metric is not new. It was founded by France in 1791. Any International trade (cloth, chocolate, etc.) would have led to an encounter with the metric system.
Yes, I know its been around for a long time (metric system)...but strange that it would be used on a question dealing with lumber (I assume late 19th century lumber was a domestic product, and wouldn’t be quantified in meters). I just question these ‘old tests’ that pop up in e-mail chains, etc. every once in a while.