impressions of the forest must have been the experience of many visitors and new settlers to the island. Samuel Hill in fact said that ”some at once get dispirited, and if they are able, return” 797, and some immigrants must have indeed given up the idea of starting on a ‘wood-farm' on the island, and either moved on to older settled coloniesm, or if they had the means, bought an already cleared farm on the island 799. However, for most, there was no choice but to persist, and these first impressions, lasting perhaps for a few days, had to be overcome. The positive psychological effects of forest clearance — There appear to have been two ways to help the settler and his family from ”sinking under the gloomy impressions of the wilderness" (to use Selkirk’s phrase): the first was, as soon as possible, to busy themselves in action — namely, once they had chosen a site, to immediately begin making it into farmland by cutting down the trees, diary written on the spot (Selkirk 1803), Selkirk makes no mention of any of the negative ‘psychological‘ reactions to the wilderness on the part of his settlers that he was to write about in his book (Selkirk 1805). Rather, it was more practical concerns that occupied their minds, such as wanting to get the best possible site for a farm on the most favourable financial terms, as well as to be close to friends and neighbours from Scotland. 797 Hill 1839 (p. 62, not extracted). 798 On the island those settlers who moved on to settle elsewhere will generally have left little record of their brief presence. Even so, there are scattered hints in the historical records of such abandonments: eg. the Lowland Scots who abandoned a settlement at Orwell in the 1770s shortly after arriving (Bumsted 1987, p, 67) — these may be the settlers that [Lawson] (1877- 1878) mentions as abandoning Point Prim for New London and other places on the island after 1774; other Lowland Scots at Three Rivers (Bumsted 1987, p. 52; Patterson 1877, pp. 94—97, 457); Irish settlers on Lot 56 (O'Grady 2004, pp. 100-104); and at an individual settler level, Sir George Seymour (1840), while travelling in Lot 13 in 1840, recorded in his diary three abandoned clearings on his township (those of the MacLean brothers, Brandling and Pashaw — all, seemingly, settlers who had given up their attempt and gone elsewhere). Of course, there was the complicating disincentive on many island townships of only leasehold land being available. 799 Several writers of emigrants’ guides for the island in fact recommended that new immigrants with the means should consider buying already cleared or partly cleared farms (eg. Lewellin 1832 (pp. 191, 199, not extracted), Hill 1839 (pp. 68-69, not extracted), Lawson 1851 (p. 25, not extracted), Hill noting that this “may be almost always accomplished, as many of the older settlers prefer new land, and are ready to sell their improvements at a much less price However in this respect, they would have been wise to bear in mind Stewart’s (1806) comment concerning those immigrants from the British Isles who made the mistake of taking old “worn out" land in the USA simply because it was free of trees, instead of clearing the more fertile land under forest. 118 and so destroying the forest.800 Thus, pre- occupied with work, the settler would have less time for morbid reflection, or, again in Selkirk’s words: "when the forests [at Belfast] were seen receding on every side, all were animated by the encouraging prospect of advancement”. The second was to avail themselves of the emotional and practical support of others living nearby who were undergoing the same experience — both already established settlers, and other new immigrants, preferably fellow countrymen, or even companions and relations from the 'old country’. In fact, for Lord Selkirk (1805) one of the main lessons that he had learned at Belfast, and that he stressed in his book, was the need for emigrants to come out in close social groups so that they could better provide each other with moral and social support, as well as physical help: To obviate the terrors which the woods were calculated to inspire, the settlement [at Belfast] was not dispersed, as those of the Americans usually are, over a large tract of country, but concentrated in a moderate space. To their families, this social style of settlement was a comfort of the utmost importance for cheering their minds, and preventing them from sinking under the gloomy impressions of the wilderness.801 As well, the writers of the immigrant’s handbooks and other accounts about the island had a penchant for composing maxims that gave encouragement to the new immigrant in the process of forest clearance, which, if they had had framed pictures in the first log cabins, they might well have placed over the mantelpiece: John Stewart 1806: Every tree which is cut down in the forest opens to the sun a new spot of earth, which, with cultivation, will produce food for man and beast. John Hill 1819: [The industrious settler] will enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the value of his lands yearly increasing, as he cuts down the trees and extends his clearance. 80° The methods that they used have been covered earlier in this report (see pages 44-48). BC” In fact one of the tenets of pioneer society was to ‘help your neighbour', and especially newcomers. This was not entirely altruistic, since everyone would benefit from co-operative labour, and neighbours were comrades in the great battle to push back the boundaries of the forest. (See Anon. (1867) for examples of co— operative action against the forest in the form of “chopping, piling, and stumping frolics").