or whether they did not think the loss significant in overall terms, is indeterminable. Instead of mentioning the large area of forest through which the fires had burned, the local officials stressed the loss of the seed crop in the 1736 fire139 and the death of fourteen people in the fire of 1742““). Nor did it seem to occur to the Count of Maurepas to ask about the effect of either fire on the forest. It is only after Maurepas’s long tenure as minister had ended that we get in the 1750s any notice of the extent of the fires (in the reports of Franquet and La Roque discussed above). It is ironic that both reports reveal that the minister's fears about wood shortages had come to pass — though not as a result of forest clearance for agriculture, as he had feared.141

The concern of the other person who mentions forest conservation, Boulaye (1733), is related to his proposal to import timber, especially ship- building materials, from lie Saint-Jean to France. His comment is brief: he says that it is necessary to give attention to allowing the land on the island that will not be cultivated to grow into futaie (i.e. mature forest) so that it will always be available as a timber resource for France. But, as noted above, his document seems to have been only a paper exercise that did not get beyond the offices of the Marine at Versailles.

Finally, I add here the only comment I could find that expresses concern about the over-hunting of the island’s fauna and the need for conservation measures. It comes in Roma’s 1750 letter to the minister, and th0ugh he is referring specifically to the migrating birds that appeared on the island in spring and autumn (presumably the geese, ducks and other shore birds, that he mentions elsewhere in his report), what he says may also have been applicable to the fauna of the island’s forests: ”the waters around the island are covered with game in spring and autumn — everywhere where the game is not over-hunted; some laws concerning this matter are necessary as the French are killing too much”“‘2.

‘39 Le Normant1736, 1737; Duchambon 1738.

“° Bigot 1742; Duchambon 1742.

1" As noted earlier Franquet (1751) recorded that on account of the'large area of burned land around Saint-Pierre and the n'viére du nerd—est the inhabitants had to go a long way in search of firewood. while La Roque (1752) noted that a large fire in the north-east peninsula had led to the abandonment of the settlement at East Point, the area around which had been reduced to a ‘déserf [i.e. wasteland].

“2 Jéan-Pierre Roma to the minister, 1750 (11 March & 14 May). [PAC, AC, c“a, Vol. 29, fol. 376]

28

CONCLUSIONS

The records — With a few exceptions all of the recorders were government officials, with almost all of the reports that contain information on the forests being intended only for the eyes of the minister and other officials in the department of the Marine at Versailles. It is in fact because of this that they have survived so well in the French colonial archives. Apart from some recorders who made lists of tree species, there were no attempts in the French period to record a detailed description or commentary on the natural forests of the island. Thus the records are limited in extent, with in many cases the forests being referred to only in passing or incidentally.

The natural forest — Within the limitations imposed by the paucity of the surviving records that refer to the forest, and basing our conclusions only on what was actually recorded in the period (and not on ecological deduction and analogy), we can still arrive at some general conclusions. We are given a relatively clear picture of the variety of trees that occurred in the forest and some idea of their relative contribution: it is evident that there were significant areas of hardwood forest as well as areas of mixed hardwoods and softwoods. There were also areas that appear to have been dominated by single tree species (beech woods, cedar woods, pine woods and spruce woods are mentioned). Among the hardwoods the shade tolerant species are more frequently mentioned (beech, sugar maple and yellow birch), with beech seeming to have made the greatest contribution to the pre—European hardwood forest.

There are only a few incidental details in the records concerning ecological aspects of the forest: fallen trees were common in at least some types of forest; ground hemlock was a significant ground flora component of the beechwoods, at least at the eastern end of the island; bog forests and cedar woods are recorded in the west; and the natural forest soils of the island were considered to be highly fertile.

Forest clearance — Due to the small size of the island’s population (until 1750 it was under 800 persons, and it only reached higher levels (up to 3,500) for a few short years in the 1750s), combined with the short duration of the period of the settlement (38 years from the first settlement to the deportation in 1758), the amount of forest that was cleared for agricultural use was in overall