Stewart (1806) must also be referring to land predominantly under hardwoods when he said that ”the fire will sometimes in very dry years, in the months of May and June, kill and partially burn the timber on our best land [my italics]".380 Even so, it is likely that the pure hardwood forests of the island, such as the extensive areas covered by almost pure beech forest, because they contained less combustible material, were less susceptible to fire than were the mixed hardwood forests with their scattered conifers, or the conifer-dominated forestsSa‘, though at the same time we should be aware that beech is known to be notably sensitive to scorching and killing by fire on account of its thin barkm.

It may be that if we had the data, we might find that the direct agent involved in the destruction of the various forest—types differed, i.e. that areas under coniferous forest which, as we have seen, were considered to have soils less suitable for agriculture, and thus were less likely to be selected for farm clearances, were instead more likely to succumb to runaway forest fires; whereas the broad-leaved forests, less susceptible to fire, and containing as they did, the trees indicative of good land suitable for clearance, were more likely to be ‘grubbed out’ to create new farmland. However, at the same time, for some areas the two agents acting in succession may have been involved in the destruction of their forests: I am thinking here of areas burnt over by runaway fires that subsequently were subjected to land clearance

land " on the lot “that a fire [had] run over‘, while Amos McWilliams, living on the same lot, alluded to fire in hardwood forest, when he said that he would not consider hardwood that had been burned to be a ‘barren'. Then, James Smith of Lot 20 stated “there is a great deal [of land] in a wilderness state burned down, and you cannot tell what it was"; the context indicates that he meant that you cannot tell whether it was “first quality land“ or not, which he had defined as “that which has grown black birch and maple". His statement thus implies that fire could also destroy ‘first quality' hardwood land.

35° in his soil indicator classification (Table 3), Stewart had described his “best land‘ as characterised by “growing together, large maple, beech, black and yellow birch, mixed with the different kinds of pine and fir".

38‘ Not under all circumstances however: we have John Brooks of Murray Harbour South‘s recollection of a fire that seems to have gone, at least in part, through beech woods (he refers to the trees as “loaded with nuts", which can only be beech). However this was only after the trees had been ‘blown down’ by a hurricane in 1839, and had then dried out (Questionnaire 1876).

382 Tubbs & Houston (1990) note that on account of its bark, beech is “highly vulnerable to injury by fire".

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operationsm. And there must also have been some areas that that were subjected to repeated

fires at intervals, such as seem to have been the

barrens at St. Petersas“.

Finally, it should be noted that fire, unlike land clearance operations, did not actually destroy a forest — for even though all of the timber might be consumed by the fire, within a short time the processes of re—colonization and succession will have been set in motion, acting to re-establish the forest on the site, a process, as has already been mentioned, that drew the attention of several of the recorders.385

THE UTILISATION OF FOREST MATERIALS: HOUSES AND BUILDING MATERIALS

The trees used for building materials — The forest was the source of virtually all of the materials used in the construction of the dwellings and farm buildings of the pioneer settlers and their descendants, as well as those living in villages and in Charlottetown.386 From an examination of the written records extracted in this study, it is evident that softwood trees supplied practically all of the building materials used on the island — the only hardwood mentioned in connection with ’house construction’ is yellow birch, which Bain (1890) said was used ”where strength [was] required”. Among the softwoods, these same records indicate that ’pine’ was especially valued in house-building387 (’white pine’ is named as the species by some), being used for boards and planksm, clapboardsm, shinglesm, and the logs

”3 The statement of James Smith contained in footnote 379 implies such land existed (Land Commission 1875),

33‘ It is Gesner (1846) who stated that the ‘barrens' at St, Peters had been “overrun by fires from time to time". See the section on the ‘barrens' in general (pp. 12-15).

335 See section on succession, pp. 22-23. 335 Even as late as 1840, the visiting Sir George Seymour noted that there were only three brick houses in Charlottetown, while all the other houses, plus “the Church and public buildings [were] of wood“ (Seymour 1840, [5 Sept, not extracted]).

33’ MacGregor 1828; Bain 1890. Benjamin Chappell (1775-1818) made use of pine (probably mostly white pine) for the ‘boards’, ‘planks‘ and beams used in house-building (see under 1775, 1776, 1779,1784,1786,1799,1800,1801,1804,1811,1817).

3“ Selkirk (1803) said that pine (he mentions only the white pine) made the best boards. He also said that it was the “timber most in demand as lumber” - ‘lumber' is a North American term for any kind of sawn wood — usually the product of sawmills (Oxford 1989;