been specially planted, or, more likely, there was a similar incorporation of natural forest trees into a landscape design.752 Forest game birds and mammals — It was especially the snowshoe hare and the ruffed grouse, and perhaps also the passenger pigeon, that provided a supplementary food source to island residents, particularly during the pioneer period. For what the records say about the use of these and other species as food, see the sections on these three species in Appendix 2, as well as the section titled ’The forest fauna as a source of food for the human population’. The furs of forest mammals - The limited evidence for the trapping of fur-bearing mammals in the early colonial period has been assembled in Appendix 2. As noted there, the unregulated trapping of the marten and the otter for their furs led to the extinction of both of these species on the island. The effect on the forest of the building and operation of the Prince Edward Island Railway — In terms of forest destruction the building of the railway in the 18705 would seem to have had only a minor effect. This was because by that time much of the land over which it ran was already cleared farmland — the principal exceptions were the lines between Miscouche and Coleman and between St. Peters and Souris, in both of which it would seem to have run almost entirely through forest that had never been cleared for farming. In those areas, it must also have given easier access to any remaining forest stands that had not yet been reached by the lumberers — there is certainly evidence that this was so in Lot 1 1 in the westm. Other effects of the railway that deserve investigation include the extent to which the island’s timber resources were used in its construction and maintenance — and not just for sleepersm, but also for the fencing that was 752 Lawson 1851; see also the comment of MacGregor (1828) on the ”prospect from the house" at “Mount Stewart‘. 753 Morrison (1983, pp. 153-54), in his study of the settlement history of Lot 11, considers that the full scale exploitation of the timber on the township only began with the building of the railway, when a sawmill was built near the railway line at the new settlement of Conway, which continued to harvest timber in the area up to the end of the nineteenth century, while a second mill was built in the 18805 and was contracted to supply sleepers for the railway. 75‘ Whether by the 18705 there was a sufficient stock of tamarack on the island to make any important contribution to the sleeper requirements of the railway is an open question. I note from the 111 needed along much of its length, as well as the wood used in the many new stations and ancillary buildings. 755 And once the railway was running, there is the question of the effect that it had on the long distance transport of timber and lumber on the islandm. Finally, there is also the question of whether forest fires were ever caused by sparks from the steam locomotives, and, as already mentioned, the extent to which wood was used as a fuel for the engines.757 ATTITUDES TO THE FOREST AND TO FOREST-RELATED ACTIVITIES THE BRITISH BACKGROUND By the eighteenth century woodland covered only a small proportion of the land area of the British Isles (much less than 10%)758, with virtually all woods being under some form of private ownership or under the control of the Crown759. And, except perhaps for the pinewoods of the Highlands of Scotland, most British and Irish woodland had been carefully managed for many Land Commission (1875), that Donald Campbell of Lot 16, in referring to land in the township near the railway that was "covered principally with spruce", said that “sleepers had been culled off of it" — though this does not mean that the sleepers were of spruce. 755 An example of the wood requirements of the RBI. Railway during its first decade is given by an advertisement in the Daily Examiner of 6 October 1882 (p. 2) calling for tenders for, among other things, 58,000 hemlock sleepers, 20,000 cedar sleepers, 13,500 cedar fence posts and 5,750 cedar braces. 756 If you look closely at the lower left of the picture on the cover of Part B of this report, you can make out two railway flat cars loaded with boards from the Eliott‘s sawmill. Morrison (1983, p. 154) reports that at Conway the railway siding had a capacity for eleven flat cars for lumber, 757 It seems that some of the early engines were wood-burning (Graham 2000, p. 21). 753 It is difficult to find a precise estimate for the forested area of any of the constituent nations of the British Isles, let alone the whole of the islands, at any particular point in the past — Rackham (1986) (p. 88) says that by 1350 woodland in England had fallen to “perhaps 10%" of the land area, and estimates that he gives for both Scotland and Ireland at a later period are much lower. Thomas (1983) (p. 194) cites a contemporary estimate of “about 8%" for England and Wales in the 16905, and about 5% by 1800. 759 From the sixteenth century onwards the great landowners in the lowland parts of England, through the process of land ‘enclosure’ (i.e. the conversion of the old medieval ‘open-field' farming system into sub-divided farms with hedged fields) had increasingly asserted ownership and control over the ‘common land‘, much of which had included scrub and bits of woodland (Hoskins 1955, pp. 121-23, 144-69; Thomas 1983, p. 200).