And the power of this attraction could extend across the Atlantic to the ’old country’, in the form of ’chain migration’, where families and communities were stimulated to migrate to the island, and then to settle in a particular area because of the presence of relatives and acquaintances who had settled before them. Such chain migration undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the settlement of the island, though as yet the subject has not been studied sufficiently to allow us to quantify its significance. 223 But the point of relevance here is that forest clearance rates in particular areas were undoubtedly affected by these social attractions that drew people to settle in particular areas.

Factors operating at the farm level — I will comment later on the amount and rate of forest clearance at the level of the individual farm. Here I need only say that among the various factors that affected this were: (1) the amount of cleared land that was required to support a farm family — this would have been at a subsistence level in the first few years, but later on, it would need to be at a level that would generate enough income to cover the expenses, especially if there was rent to pay; (2) the amount of labour and time required to clear this land by cutting down the trees and removing the stumps; (3) then, there was the problem of the decline in soil fertility of the land the longer it was under crops.229 This could have been counteracted (and was by some farmers) by adding fertilizers of various types, but another remedy was to continue cutting down the forest to bring new more fertile land under the plough.230 (4) However,

”3 Again Lord Selkirk (1803) gives us a perceptive comment (p.

35, not extracted): ”The ambition of the Highlanders [at Belfast, to have] a considerable extent [of land] must be humoured — in taking several hundred acres, an individual does not imagine that he shall cultivate or need it all himself, but he must have room to spread, & room for his brother or his cousin that is to follow him." For further examples of chain migration see Hatvany (1996) (pp. 139—40) and Campey (2003) (p. 148).

229 Several recorders comment on the declining fertility of the land with continued cropping. For example, Lawson (1851) wrote that “crops taken out of the wood, as it is termed, are the most profitable", adding that “taking crop after crop without adding anything to the soils is the invariable practice until the poor mother earth refuses to bear any longer. and it is not until [then] that they think of supplying food for the plants". Similarly, in the same year Judge James Peters (1851) noted that "the new land yields abundantly", but that “the foolish, barbarous system of cutting repeated grain and hay crops from the same land, without manuring" led to the ‘exhaustion' of the ground. He went on to advocate the addition of various manures and fertilisers.

23° l have not found this described explicitly as the practice on an individual farm but Cundall (1854-1865) said in 1854 that, after the land on the farms of some of the Acadian farmers in the Tignish

39

counteracting these pushes towards the removal of more and more of the forest on a farm was the necessity of maintaining a firewood supply for the farm by keeping a substantial area as a woodlot.

Conclusion — To conclude this section, it is evident that the factors affecting the rate and pattern of forest clearance over the whole island were complex, and involved an interaction between innate natural features of the island and factors associated with the human population. As has already been said, the analysis needed to construct maps showing the pattern of forest clearance has not yet been carried out, and we thus must leave it to future researchers, probably working first at the level of individual townships, and then eventually extending the study to give a province- wide picture.231 Even without the maps, we can still speculate in a general way about the spatial pattern that would be exhibited: it would have begun in the 17705 with the slow erosion of the forested area beginning near the shoreline in those few townships whose proprietors had begun settlement, and then in the next half century slowly spreading along most of the coasts and waterways wherever there was suitable hardwood forest, as well as pushing the boundary of the cleared land inland from the coast?32 Then, as the lines for roads were laid out in the inland parts of the island, these would have attracted settlement and clearance in the interior parts.

Despite the lack of a precise geographical picture, we are still able to construct an accurate temporal picture of forest clearance in the nineteenth century by using contemporary data collected during the many censuses. Figure 4 shows the changing acreage of 'arable’ and/or 'improved’ land over the whole island from the beginning of British settlement — each acre representing an acre

area had ‘run out' due to their not using manure, "they [retired] to farms in the woods which in a few years [would] be in the same state as the farms they left." A comment of Stewart (1806) is also relevant: he said that in the ‘American states‘ [la the USA] it is "generally accounted more profitable for a young farmer to go upon new [forest lands], than to remain upon old cultivated lands“, which, were “often found to be worn out".

231 An example of a starting point for such a study at the township level is Morrison's (1983) study of settlement in Lot 11: if maps were to be added showing the farm boundaries of each of the settlers, with generalised estimates of the amount of cleared land on each, this could lead to a picture of the changing effects of forest destruction due to agricultural clearance.

232 Johnstone (1822) stated that “front lands are now nearly all occupied, except upon the west end of the Island, unless it be land that is swampy and not of good quality."