leagues in circumference [i.e. between 11.1 and 16.7 km].

The only other phrase indicative of the relative abundance of the tree species in a particular area occurs in La Roque's (1752) description of the forest along the cart-trail that ran across the Bedeque-Malpeque isthmus: "couvertes de toutes sortes de bois mais le dominant est le hérico” — [covered with all kinds of wood but the dominant is the hemlock] (see Appendix 1: Figures 1-1 and 1-2).

We may thus conclude that the records of the French period give little information on either the relative abundance of species in particular stands or the relative distribution of forest-types. The most that we can say is that they indicate that the forest of the island was not a homogeneous mixture of trees.

The tree species composition of the forest — An alternative way of obtaining an indication of the relative frequency of the various trees in the forests of the island is an indirect one. It involves comparing the number of times that each tree is mentioned in all of the records taken together. The reSults of such an analysis are presented in Appendix 1.

These specific tree records are of two types: the trees either occur in lists that attempt to name all or most of the trees, either on the whole island or a specific part of it, or else a tree species is recorded in some other context, usually a utilitarian one. Interpretation of these records is fraught with problems, ranging from the fundamental one of determining what tree a recorder meant by his use of a particular name, to the over— or under-representation of certain species in the records due to a positive or negative bias with respect to them: for example, trees considered of greater economic importance, such as oak and pine, are likely to appear more frequently in the records on that account. These problems are fully discussed for each of the species in Appendix 1.

The analysis in Appendix 1 indicates that eighteen tree names occur in the historical records of the French period. Setting aside oak for the reason given above, the relative frequency of the hardwood species in the lists suggests a marked predominance of shade-tolerant climax forest species (i.e. beech, yellow birch and sugar maple) in comparison with early successional species, and among these tolerant hardwoods there appears to

be a marked predominance of beech over yellow birch and maple. At the same time, all of the other broad-leaves, including the early successional light-demanding trees that are now so abundant on the island (especially white birch and trembling aspen), are much less frequently mentioned and thus appear to have been far less important in the eighteenth century forest.

The data on the conifers is less conclusive due to the greater difficulty in identifying specific conifer trees from the French names used. Thus only two points emerge which are relevant here: hemlock, a conifer that is an element of present-day climax hardwood forests in North America, is mentioned as frequently as maple, which suggests that it was more common in the eighteenth century than it is today; and the frequent mention of spruces and firs, as well as of pine, suggests that they were all fairly common on the island.

The size of the trees — We are given very little information on tree heights or girths in French period records. There is one qualitative description of trees as ’large', the ”gros bois de chenes" [large oak trees] at Tracadie.42 Otherwise most of the records on tree size concern trees for masts, and thus refer explicitly or implicitly to pine, and frequently to red pine. Among these records: Saint-Ovide (1725) noted that the 400 to 500 red pine masts harvested by the Company of 116 Saint- Jean some years before were from 50 to 75 feet in length and up to 24 inches in diameter.43 A year later he makes the general comment that pine on lle Saint—Jean had been used for masts of 50 to 60 feet in length.44 This implies a diameter of 16 to 20 inches“, and is consistent with Commissaire Mézy’s (1726) comment that the island was able to supply ”an abundance of good quality topmasts [mats de hune] for the largest vessels” — the species is unspecified but is probably pine.46 Both

‘2 Pensens 1732.

‘3 It should be noted that the French foot (pied) and inch (pouce) of the eighteenth century were 6.3% longer than the English foot and inch (Bamford 1956, p. 11); also these diameters are for the finished mast — the diameter of the living tree with its bark on would have been at least a couple of inches greater.

“ Saint-Ovide 1726: 28 November, Letter 2.

‘5 The standard ratio between length and diameter for masts was three times in feet the diameter in inches (Bamford 1956, p. 12, fn. 12). This ratio is explicitly stated for lie Saint-Jean masts in two different documents (Saint-Ovide 1726: 28 November, Letter 1; Pensens 1721:12 August).

‘6 Albion (1926) (p. 28) records that in the Napoleonic period the

largest topmast on a first-rate ship was 21 English inches in diameter and 23 yards in length.