Also especially valuable are the many early published accounts of the island, many of which take the form of a ’handbook’ for new settlers.13 Some of these were written by proprietors resident on the island themselves, and were generally aimed at a British readership with the purpose of encouraging the prospective emigrant to choose Prince Edward Island as his or her destination. At the same time they also aimed to give useful information and advice to people unfamiliar with life in the pioneer settlements of the North American continent. This type of literature ranges in length from a few pages to full-length books, with some being far more than handbooks, presenting detailed accounts of the natural history and settlement of the island, and often including very valuable accounts of the forests. And with the beginning of new settlement, ever expanding in the next eighty years up to about 1850, we now have a new group of recorders not heard from before: these are the permanent island residents, in effect the first ’Islanders’.

There also continue to be many visitors to the island, but now almost all visit in a private capacity, and their writings are for their own personal use. Among these are professional writers. In addition there are also a large number of what I call ’absentee’ writers producing accounts of the island based on second-hand information, usually from published sources especially Stewart (1806) and MacGregor (1828). Then from about the 18405 there begins to appear a new class of writer — what I have called in this report the 'scientific' and/or 'botanical' recorders, some of whom were professional scientists visiting the island”; others were resident amateurs with a scientific or botanical interest, some using Latin binomial names.15

The comments of all of these recorders can be grouped into five types: (1) there are general comments on the state of the forest — these are often brief. More useful are: (2) lists of the different tree species occurring on the island

‘3 Examples are: [Clark] 1779; [Cambridge] ?1796; [MacDonald] 1804; Stewart 1806; Anon. 1808; Anon. 1818; [Hill] 1819; Johnstone 1822; MacGregor 1828; Lewellin 1832; Hill 1839; Lawson 1851; Bagster 1861; Rowan 1876.

'4 Gesner 1846; Dawson 1868; 1871; Macoun 1894; Chalmers 1895.

'5 Bagster 1861; Sutherland 1861; [Bain] 1882; Bain 1890; McSwain & Bain 1891; [Watson] post 1904. A forerunner of these is Stewart (1806).

(thirty—seven recorders give these) often accompanied by comments on individual trees species, as well as, sometimes, descriptions of the forest in general or of the forest at specific areas — both of these aspects on the tree species are fully analysed in Appendix 1. Then there are: (3) extended ecological comments, especially on two topics: the relation between the natural forests and the soils on which they occurred (a topic of direct practical importance to new settlers clearing wilderness for a farm); and also on the phenomenon of forest succession, i.e. the changes that occurred in the forest as a result of fire and tree-cutting, as well as the trees that began to grow on the land after a farm was abandoned, changes already evident to the new British settlers on the lands that had been cleared by the French. There are also (4) many comments on the forest as a source of timber and other products — either potential or actual, with often a comment on the extent of forest exploitation on the island, for whatever purpose, that was occurring at the time of writing. Finally, there are (5) many comments of a miscellaneous nature on various topics, including the occurrence and effects of forest fires, the presence and use of forest animals (these have been fully analysed in Appendix 2), the forest and trees as a landscape element, as well as the recording, casual and otherwise, of attitudes and opinions towards many different aspects of the forest.

it should be noted that the amount of useful information varies considerably from document to document, with many containing only the briefest of comments on the forest. There are however a number of exceptional and extremely useful documents that each make a valuable contribution to the topic. Among these are Curtis (1775), Selkirk (1803)”, Stewart (1806), Johnstone (1822), MacGregor (1828) and Bain (1890), as well as the evidence collected by the Land Commission of 1875. Of these, Johnstone and Curtis, especially, are useful for giving us their direct personal experience of the forest, including the act of travelling in the forest and their observation of aspects that went unrecorded by others.

‘6 Selkirk in his diary made extensive notes on the various tree

species and the relation of each to soil quality. as well as on other aspects of forest ecology; information that must have come from his guide; the surveyor-general of the island Thomas Wright, who otherwise; as far as I know; has left us no such written records under his own name.