Potash — The wood—ash left over from the burning of the trees during the process of forest clearance was recognized as providing an important fertilizer that stimulated the growth of the first crops sown among the stumpsm. It was however also a valuable raw material from which lye could be extracted, which could then be used in various processes such as bleaching, glass—making and soap-making.733 As a result, in the early period of the European settlement of North America there developed a commercial market for the ash of hardwood trees, especially the beech, which was considered to produce the best potash, and which Samuel Hill called ”the staple of its production”.734 In the United States in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as in Upper Canada, potash became a valuable export commodity to the industrial markets of Great Britain, and many farmers were able to obtain a useful income during

the process of clearing their land.735

However, for Prince Edward Island, there are only four references to potash in the early literature, none of which suggest that it was an important item in commercial trade. In fact, the comment of Samuel Hill (1839) that ”pot-ash ought long ago to have been exported to England", indicates that a trade had never developed, which is given support by a partial examination of the customs records.736 However, this would appear to conflict with a statement of Judge James Peters (1851), who in his pamphlet on the importance of using natural fertilizers to maintain the production of newly cleared arable land on the island, deplored the fact that he had ”often seen new settlers selling ashes” his use of the word ’new’ for the settlers, implying that it was not the ash from the household fire that was being sold, but that resulting from forest clearance. If the ash was being sold to other islanders for making soap,

732

Selkirk 1805; Johnstone 1822; Peters 1851; Land Commission 1860: ‘Memorial‘ of the tenants of Lot 22; Land

Commission 1875: evidence of James F. Stewart, proprietor of Lot 7.

’33 Murray 1839 (p. 334, not extracted), See also Williams (1989) (p. 74) for other industrial processes of the day that used lye.

73“ Hill1839. Murray (1839) (p. 334, not extracted) also said that “the beech was reckoned the best" for potash. I note however that Williams (1989) (p. 74) says that in the United States ‘oak' and sugar maple yielded the highest amount of potash.

”5 Williams 1989, pp. 77-75, 139.

736 In my cursory examination of the custom records for the island from between 1802 and 1808, and in the summaries for later years, I did not notice any potash listed.

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there will not be a conflict with Hill's statement. For, as Sir Andrew Macphail (1939) stated, during the pioneer period on the island, it was the practice in the winter to save the ashes from the hardwood fire in a barrel, and then in the spring to leach out the alkali with water, to be used in the home for making soap. However, the discovery of a chemical method of making alkali meant that by the 1830s potash was losing its commercial value throughout North America737 — as is hinted by Samuel Hill (1839), when he said that it was not so much in demand as formerly. Later, when commercially produced lye began to be sold on the island, the domestic use of home-produced lye also declined, and then, as Macphail put it ”the ashes were wasted”.

Maple sugar — What the recorders tell us about the production of sugar from the island's forests is presented in Appendix 1 in the section on the ’Properties and uses' of the maples. There is no evidence that the production of maple sugar led to the retention or conservation of areas of maple trees, for by the mid-nineteenth century it was considered a poor substitute for sugar imported from the West Indies.

Medicinal or therapeutic plants — The extent to which the ground plants of the forest that are mentioned in island records as having a medicinal or dietary application (’sarsaparilla’, 'ginseng’, and ’maiden hair’ are the most frequently mentionedm) were actually collected for this purpose is not evident from any of the records. It seems however that products of several of the island’s conifer trees were commonly used for such purposes: the spruce yielded a drink, spruce beer, which is mentioned by three recorders, one of whom stated that it was one of the ’general’ drinks of the island739. However, it seems to have been used only during the early colonial period.740 Hemlock ’tops’ (presumably the leaves) yielded a

737 Murray (1839) (pp. 334-35, not extracted) in his chapter on the ‘Agriculture of [Upperj Canada’, after quoting a source that said that an acre of cleared hardwood land could yield on average 10 hundredweight of wood-ash, with a value of 12 to 15 shillings per hundredweight, added that “it is now found that soda and other salts can by chemical improvements be made to answer the purpose of wood-ashes"; and so the wood—ash, having lost its commercial value. was no longer of “any account but for making soap, or being used as manure“.

73" See the section on ‘Forest ground vegetation', pp, 21-22.

’39 Anon. 1771; [Cambridge] 1796?; Stewart 1806. It was John Cambridge who said it was a ‘general’ drink on the island.

7‘” I note that no recorder mentions the use of spruce gum.