people was that the beech woods played an important role in the plagues, and since such plagues seem to have been frequent and widespread“, the inference is that beech woods must have been common on the island, at least near most of the areas settled by 1752.63

Conclusion — The overall importance of beech in both the tree lists and the tally, combined with the other comments above, suggests that in the first half of the eighteenth century beech was likely to have been a leading tree species of the hardwood forests of Prince Edward Island. Some of the comments also suggest that it occurred — at least in some areas - as virtually single—species stands.

OAK (Quercus rubra) [French name : chéne]

Identification — Since the leaves and acorns of the North American red oak (Quercus rubra) clearly label it as an oak species, there is not likely to have been any problem in its identification. Oak was also a tree that attracted the special notice of the French recorders based on European experience (especially military and naval), it was viewed as the wood par excellence for building warships and other vessels, as well as for most other construction. In fact in the two concessionary grants made by the French king on ile Saint-Jean (Louis xv 1719, 1731), all oak woods suitable for use in ship-building were to be reserved for the king's use — which was Sufficient reason for government officials (which most of the recorders were) to keep an eye open for it. (However, it soon became apparent to Europeans that in this respect the wood of the red oak was not up to the standard of either of the two European species (0. robur and 0. petraean.64

his fourteen years at Trois Riviéres, makes no mention of beech mast per se as a factor in the mouse irruptions — he rather attributes them to a succession of winters with heavy snow that gave the mice protection from predators, kept them warm and conserved their food stores: ‘grains et graines' [seeds and grains].

62 Harvey 1926; Clark 1959, p. 39.

63 See Clark (1959) (p. 34: Fig. 15) for a map of the distribution of the population in 1752 based on La Roque’s census.

5‘ For example, see Denys’ attempts in his Histoire Nature/[e (1672) (reprinted in Ganong 1908, pp. 378-79, 574) to counteract the poor reputation for ship building that North American oak had already acquired in his day. Although he does not specify the species, the only oak occurring widely in Acadia was Quercus rubra, the red oak (Farrar 1995). Elsewhere (p. 108) Denys comments on the better quality of the oaks along the Penobscot

River of Maine — which may be due to the fact that in this area

135

Nomenclature -— It is listed unambiguously by all recorders as chéne, the French word for oak, often in the form chesne — the circonflex of the modern spelling marking the dropped 3.

The tree lists - Oak occurs in six of the eight tree lists (Table 1-2), which gives it second place (with yellow birch) among the broad—leaved species. It also ranks joint first (with beech) in the total tally (Table 1-3). However, since many of the references to oak are more concerned with its potential as a building material than as an element in the forest“, it is probably over—represented in both of these tables in relation to its abundance on the island.

Roma (1750) in his list notes that the oak is petit peu commun, an imprecise phrasing that carries I think the sense that it is a bit common but not in a large amount.66 More useful is Franquet's (1751) comment that oak is the least common of all the trees in his tree list for the island. As a military engineer recently arrived from France, Franquet would have been keeping an eye out for oak. His comment on oak abundance must thus be given due weighting — though he appears not to have visited Tracadie and certainly not Malpeque (two places where Pensens and La Roque comment on the oak (see below).

Specific areas — Saint-Ovide (1725), the governor at Louisbourg, on the basis of second-hand information, wrote that there were a lot of fine oaks on the island, particularly at a place called les Trois Riviéres [the present Georgetown area]. Pensens (1732) in his ’state of the isle' report said that the area near the French settlement of Tracardy was ”couvert de gros bois de chéne" [covered with large oak trees] their size presenting an obstacle to forest clearance.67

there also occurred more southerly species of oak, i.e. white oak (Q. alba), black oak (Q. velutina), and bur oak (Q. macrocarpa) (Farrar 1995).

65 Examples of the emphasis on the wood of oak are: Gotteville’s (1720) record that the wood of the oak on the island was inferior to that of beech which was “harder and more dense" [plus dur et plus p/ein']; La Ronde's (1721) comment that it was a source of wood

for bordage [planking]; and Roma’s (1750) comment that it was suitable for small boats [batiments de met).

66 ‘petit peu commun’ can be translated in different ways: it could

mean ‘[a] little bit common', or ‘[a] little uncommon‘, or even

‘small[,] not very common’ but the first seems to fit better from its context in the sentence.

67 La Roque (1752) indicates that the Tracadie settlement in that year was on the west side of the bay, and it can be exactly located from the 1765 Holland map (PARO, Map 0,617C).