equivalent of saying that the island was 'covered with trees’, and anyway, it is evident that the writer was trying to discourage new settlers from coming to the island.

However, there is no such bias to counteract the evidence that we have that in the spruce barrens and swamps, (and presumably also in successional forest), the trees could indeed be closely spaced: we have Robert Gray's (1793) description of the difficulty of travelling through a ’spruce swamp’ because of the closeness of the small trees, and Johnstone’s (1823) description of a similar difficulty of getting through the impenetrable tangle of the coastal spruce woods.

Fallen trees in the forest — As had Jean-Pierre Roma during the French period‘“, many recorders noted the presence of fallen trees in the forest. The most vivid description is that of Johnstone (1822) who, as we have seen, commented on the many fallen trees in that part of the forest just inland from the strip of spruce woodland found along the coast.

That such windfalls were not confined to forests near the coast is evident from other recorders: Hill (1839) mentions the obstruction to travel in the woods in general caused by "wind-falls”, while Seymour (1840) noted the ”many fallen trees” that made travel difficult even on horseback in the woods near the boundary of Lots 13 and 14. Curtis (1775) implied that such windfalls were more common in the mixed forest than in the hardwoods: ”in this mixture of growth there being so many large trees blown down and covered [i.e. with snow in the winter] that it is not possible to find them until you tread on them and sink in far over head and ears” (as he had earlier described happening to himself). He attributed these fallen trees to the ’power’ of the wind, which was less where the trees grew ”strong and close" — as they did in the closed hardwood forest.

Such windfalls became a more serious problem wherever the natural forest was cut into. Johnstone (1822) noted that wherever clearances were made by the settlers, the wind played havoc with the surrounding trees ”overturning some of them by the roots [and] breaking others by the middle”. This also occurred, he said, along new roads through the woods, where "every blast of the wind is in danger of filling [the road] with wind

121

See Sobey 2002, p. 14.

21

falls, as they call them", so that the trees have to be cut ”to a considerable distance” on each side of the road.122 Henry Cundall in 1865 observed a "great many” such windfalls on the newly opened ”road at Rattenburys” which ran off the Malpeque Road.123

Such fallen trees in the forest were of course part of the natural cycle of death and decay, and in the process they provided a food source for birds and mammals which fed on the insects living within the decomposing trees: in fact Stewart (1806) recorded that bears fed upon ”a large insect, which they [obtained] by tearing the old wind- fallen trees to pieces”.

‘Cradle-hills’ — The natural death and decay of trees led also to a micro-topographical feature that drew the attention of two recorders. Selkirk (1805) noted that the natural forest surface was ”rough owing to trees that have been blown down by storms, and have torn up the earth along with their roots, so as to form little hillocks which remain long after the timber is entirely gone to decay”. Johnstone (1822) gives a similar description and also recorded that the islanders called them ’cradle-hills’124. He noted that, like the fallen trees themselves, such hills were an impediment to travel in the woods, and where they were large, they required much labour in their leveling in the process of road-making, and also before the land could be used for farming. Otherwise, after clearing, the "good earth” would be found in the hollow and the hillocks would "produce nothing but moss and sorrel”. Even so, he observed elsewhere that where the cradle hills were high the first ploughing often resulted in the ”good soil” in the hollow being covered by the ”bad soil from the heart of the cradle hills".

The forest ground vegetation — The ground flora of the forest receives limited comment from a few of the recorders. Most of those who did note such plants tended to concentrate on those that produced edible fruits — thus strawberries,

‘22 Elsewhere, Johnstone records his direct experience of trees.

seemingly roadside trees, being brought down by wind, this time during winter snow storms (Johnstone 1822, pp. 135, 137, not extracted).

123 Cundall 1854-1865. This must be the road still known as the Rattenbury Road in Lots 21 and 67.

124

Pratt (1988) in the Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English lists both ‘cradle-hills‘ and ‘cradle—hollows’ for the feature, though he found the latter only in twentieth century reminiscences.