the mosquito, were considered to be a major annoyance during the summer and early autumn‘”, both to the island’s human population, and to livestock.191 Many recorders commented on the connection between the insects and the forest‘”, several saying that with the clearing of the forest the problem was lessening, with one recorder noting that this was because of ”the opening of the land to the welcoming breeze”.193 However back in 1773, the island’s first House of Assembly had misguidedly believed that these ’troublesome insects’, as they called them, were actually breeding in the 'woods’, and so, in part because of this, in its first session the Assembly passed a law permitting landowners to set fire in the spring to the materials in which they believed the insects were breeding and harbouring, namely "the small bushes, rotten wind falls, decayed leaves, and all other brush and rubbish”.194 How long this mistaken view persisted is not clear — certainly by 1806 John Stewart was aware that the mosquito problem was associated with the presence of ”salt marshes or wet ground”‘95, and some nine years later, in contrast to the earlier relaxed attitude to forest fire, attempts were being made by the government to restrict the careless use of fire in forest clearance, as in the proclamation of Governor Smith in 1815.196

name ‘black fly' are Stewart (1806) and Hill (1839), Stewart using it as an alternative name for the sand fly.

‘9‘) Holland (1764), Curtis (1775) and Stewart (1806) said “in summer”; Patterson (1773) "in the summer months"; M’Robert (1776) “in the summer and autumn"; MacGregor (1828) “during the heat of the summer"; and Hill (1839) “during July and August". ‘9‘ All state, or imply, that they were a great annoyance to people, but Holland (1764), not yet arrived on the island, had been informed by someone that “neither man nor beast can withstand them in the woods", and Anon. (1836) said that in July ‘the cattle' were “driven out of the woods by the flies". Johnstone (1822) (p. 134, not extracted) says that “to defend their cattle and sheep from the flies in the night, a large fire [was kindled] in their fold or pen, and the black cattle and sheep will contend who is to get nearest the smoke till their hair and wool are sometimes singed”.

‘92 Holland 1764; Patterson 1773; Curtis 1775; M'Robert 1776; Anon. 1808; MacGregor 1828; Anon. 1836; Hill 1839.

‘93 M’Robert 1776; Stewart 1806; Anon. 1808; MacGregor 1828; Hill 1839. It is Anon. (1808) who mentions the breeze as bringing the solution.

194

See House of Assembly (1773-1849) (the act of 1773), and especially also the explanatory letter of Governor Patterson to the Secretary of State in London (Patterson 1773).

‘95 Stewart 1806 (p. 90. not extracted). MacGregor (1828) also noted the association of mosquitoes with ‘marshes’.

196 House of Assembly 1773-1849: Proclamation of 1815.

34

FOREST CLEARANCE

The principal cause of the destruction of the old- growth forests of Prince Edward Island was their removal to make way for agricultural land. This process, unlike the effects of forest fire or of timber felling, resulted in the total destruction of the forest on the land that was cleared. Following a twelve year lapse after the deportation of virtually the whole of the French population, forest clearance for agriculture began again in the 1770s with the arrival of new settlers from the British Isles.197

The pattern of forest clearance for agriculture — At this point I want to review briefly those factors that contributed to the pattern of forest clearance, both the spatial or geographical pattern — and because this changed from year to year — the temporal pattern in these changes to the end of the nineteenth century. It would be useful to be able to show these patterns as a series of maps — perhaps at ten year intervals — showing the amount of cleared land (and thus the amount of forest that had been destroyed) at each of these times. As I have already noted, we are fortunate to have a precise starting map, that of Samuel Holland showing the clearances of the French period‘”; and we also have from near the end of the nineteenth century the map of Robert Chalmers based on survey work carried out between 1890 and 1893 — though unfortunately his published map shows only about half of the island.199 For the period between 1765 and 1890

‘97 Prior to 1770 the British-derived population was small in

number and mostly transient, with most persons either having a connection with the fishery or with logging (a census of July 1768 carried out by the authorities from Nova Scotia counted 68 British persons). It has always been difficult to gauge the number of Acadians who remained on the island after the deportation (or returned to it) — the same 1768 census gives a count of 203 Acadians. (See Lockerby (2004) for a detailed analysis of this census.) Given these small numbers and the non-farming occupations of many of them we may presume that any forest clearance for farming purposes between 1758 and 1770 must have been very limited.

‘98 Holland (1765) Plan of the Island of St. John. (PARO: map 0,6170). Holland also attached a table to his map containing an estimate of the number of acres of cleared land (and thus of the amount of forest destroyed to that date) on each of the sixty—seven townships into which he had divided the island (see the table in Holland 1765),

‘99 Chalmers 1895. We are fortunate that for the twentieth century there are quite a number of maps showing the area under forest at regular intervals. Some have been made by the federal cartographic division, while in recent years others have been made by the provincial Forestry Division and are based on the aerial photographic surveys of the island carried out in the twentieth