covered is indicated by many of the recorders, with the dominant tree frequently providing the name for the type of swamp: there are references to red spruce swamp‘“, black spruce swamps”, ash swamps”, cedar swampsg“, ’juniper’ swamps [i.e. tamaracklgs, and alder swamps96 — and there may have been other types that have not entered the records.97 The swamps were viewed by some as being potentially convertible to agricultural land, th0ugh it was for use as ’meadow’ or 'pasture’ land“, rather than as cultivated arable land.99 The

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Selkirk 1803. In such swamps Selkirk said that along with red spruce there was “ash, alder, currants etc."

92 Stewart 1806; Johnstone 1822; Proprietors 1837; Land Commission 1860: evidence of Martin Foley, Lot 3; Land Commission 1875: evidence of Robert Holton, Lot 9. The ‘spruces' that Hill (1839) associates with swamps, and the trees in the swamp of ‘spruce-fir‘ that Gray (1793) encountered in Lot 13 must also have been black spruce.

93 Gray 1793; Gesner 1846; Census 1841; Land Commission 1875: evidence of H. Braddock. In the swamp that Gray encountered in Lot 13, along with “large ash trees" (presumably black ash) was an ‘underwood‘ of “alders, dogwood, maples etc,”

9" Gesner 1846; Census 1841; Craswell & Anderson c. 1856; Land Commission 1875: evidence of George DeBlois, Lot 9; Robert Holton, Lot 9; Donald McPhee, Lot 9; and Albert Williams, Lot 12. Also, although he does not use the name ‘cedar swamp‘, Felix McKinnon refers to cedar (“worth considerable") that once occurred on the swamps of Lot 9.

95 Census 1841; Land Commission 1875: evidence of Donald Campbell for Lot 16, and of H. Braddock for Lot 36.

9“ [MacDonald] 1804; Land Commission 1875: evidence of Albert Williams, Lot 12, and of Francis Curran, Lot 50.

97 For example, red maple is said by Stewart (1806) to be “generally found growing in swamps", though the term ‘maple swamp' is not recorded by any of the recorders.

9“ Selkirk (1803) says ‘meadow‘, Hill (1839) ‘pasture‘. Stewart (1806) also describes the conversion of some swamps to grassland. There is in fact an important distinction between the use of the terms ‘meadow' and ‘pasture‘ when applied to grassland, a distinction still current in the British Isles, but which seems now to have been lost on the island: according to Tansley (1939) (p. 179), the term ‘meadow' in the British Isles is applied to grassland, “typically on alluvial flats bordering on rivers, with high ground- water, the grass mown for hay, and the aftermath usually grazed”; ‘pasture‘, on the other hand, refers to grassland “on drier soils" that is generally continuously grazed and only rarely used for hay. It is likely that this distinction is implicit in the use of these two words in the early descriptive records for the island.

99 It was Sir George Seymour (1840) who noted that, unlike the barrens, “the swamps are said to be cultivable". However, this was not the prevailing view: the absentee proprietors in a ‘memorial' (Proprietors 1837) claimed that the swamps of the island “could never be properly cultivated" - though clearly they had a financial interest in saying so (see the introduction to the extract); while witnesses to the Land Commission (1875) either stated explicitly, or implied, that swamp land was worthless and uncultivable: Donald Campbell of Lot 16 said that “scarcely any” of an area of “juniper swamp" in the lot was "fit for cultivation", while the surveyor

16

swamps were viewed as covering only a limited land area on the island, as is evident in the next section.100

The distribution of the recognized forest-types — We are given little information on the relative amount of coverage of the island’s surface of any of the above forest-types, nor on their geographical distribution on the island. The hardwood forests that were generally taken as an indicator of good agricultural soils were considered by several of the more detailed recorders to be the prevailing forest-type of the island‘o‘. Macoun (1894) commented with some surprise that hardwood forest was "found throughout [the island] on the general level only a few feet above the level of the sea”, which he said was not so for the mainland‘”. There is however the clear implication that soil moisture was the key factor, and that, of the forest-types, the hardwoods occurred on the better drained sites: Stewart (1806) noted that on the upland areas of the island — what he called the ’hills’ — ”the timber is in general hardwood”. Similarly, Gesner (1846) noted that the higher ground of the central part of the island had a hardwood cover‘°3, while ”westward of Fifteen Point”, he noted that ”the low tracts and swamps are covered by spruce, fir, and cedar; yet, wherever the land is dry, there are fine groves of hardwood”. Then, Francis Bain observed that at Springfield, in the centre of the hill-lands, ”the district is nearly all covered with deciduous trees” (he lists yellow and white birch, sugar and red maple, with ”many small" striped and mountain maple, plus beech), but he added "hemlock, spruce and fir occur in hollows", while ”white pines grow solitary on the dry land among the hardwood”.104 I note also Ready’s (1899) late, and undoubtedly second-hand, comment that in Lot 20 hardwood trees (he lists beech, maple and

Owen Curtis with reference to Lot 36, said that swamps could not be cultivated (they also had a financial interest in saying so).

10° The ‘swamps' would appear to be the equivalent, at least in part, ofthe “wet rich woodland" of Sobey and Glen (2002, 2004).

“’1 This is implied by Stewart 1806, MacGregor 1828, and Bain 1890.

‘02 Gesner (1846) even reported hardwood forest at the edge of the sea (i.e. at St. Peters Bay, Cascumpec and Panmure Island). ‘03 Gesner recorded that there were “majestic forests of hardwoods" on the “elevated ridges” near New Glasgow, and that “the ridge of high ground" that extended through the island from Crapaud to New London bore “thick forests of hardwood".

‘°" Bain 1868-1884: 6 February, 1873.