1765], some hundred Settlements and Villages [have been] started up in places where bears, foxes, [and] loupcerviers were wont to consider their exclusive property" the expulsion and elimination of the animal occupants of the forest symbolizing the triumph of civilization over the wilderness.805 We might also give a metaphorical slant to another passage in which he recommended that selected and suitably tamed elements of the wilderness forest, might be incorporated into the new pastoral landscape as a backdrop for the flower garden: Tell [your good lady] to bring seeds of every possible variety of Summer flowers [from the British Isles], when contrasted with the dark green of the indigenous Fir or placed in juxtaposition with the red—berried Sumach, the splendid Tree Cranberry, the Kalmiea, Ledum and a number whose names I cannot call to mind — all natives — will form as pretty a shrubbery and flower garden as she will leave behind. Another person whose writings recorded the steady advance of settlement was Horatio Mann, the landlord of some ten thousand acres in Lot 27 [the Searletown and Kinkora areas], who visited the island regularly at intervals of several years and who kept a diary during his visits: to such an occasional visitor the landscape changes that had occurred on the island since his previous visit were welcome signs of ‘improvement’. For example, in 1829, he commented that the "rapid improvements made and still making is truly great"; and at one particular location he observed with satisfaction the ”great improvements on the road for upwards of 12 miles”, which eleven years before had been "a compleat Wilderness of heavy Woods” 806. Eleven years later, in 1840, he recorded a similar assessment of the changes in the landscape along the Princetown Road from Charlottetown to Hunter River and beyond: In short, the number of log houses going up on the road side, with burning and chopping down trees, and that for miles, and in places beholding fine clearances and in many places good farms of from 20 to 30 acres with the prospect of good crops. The appearances to me 305 Also utilizing the same metaphor is the poem called ‘The O'Leary Road' (written sometime after 1880), where ”Man's dominion", represented by the "reaper and the iron plough", has replaced the "wild dominion" ofthe ‘fox‘ and the ‘bear’ ([Hughes] c. 1880-1900 — in Appendix 6).. 806 Mann 1829. He was describing the road between Bedeque and Tryon (namely, the present Route 112 (from Bedeque to Albany), plus the part of the Trans-Canada Highway between Albany and Tryon]). 120 after 6 years absence gave an entire new aspect to the country around. 807 Finally, even as late as 1883, the naturalist Francis Bain, while on a railway ’excursion’ from Charlottetown to Alberton, could not hide his admiration for the ongoing progress that had been made in one of the later settled districts of the island: We passed through [Bradalbane] when only a few small cleared patches surrounding the log huts broke the gloomy wilderness of the forest. But the iron horse came this way, and Bradalbane today looks up from her populous valley at the scattered remnants of the forest beautifying the distant hill-tops.808 The achievement in retrospect — In later years, when the war against the forest was largely over, for the pioneers themselves in old age, as well as for their descendants, in looking back, there was the satisfaction of having achieved victory against the forest, and an attendant pride in their achievement. There are a number of such ’retrospective’ accounts, some written for private cir0ulation in the family, others reaching a wider public through publication in local newspapers.809 However, the only account that I have included in the extracts is the one printed in the appropriately 3‘" Mann 1840. The road is the Malpeque Road (or Route 2). 808 [Bain] 1883. 8°” There are undoubtedly quite a number of accounts written by the pioneer settlers in their old age or by their children, which expressed pride in the achievement. l have not carried out a systematic search for such accounts nor have they been extracted in this sourcebook. However, four such accounts that have been placed on the Island Register website [www.islandregister.com] are those of Abraham Gill, Senior (of Little York) (1870) “Extracts from a Diary" (16 December 1870); Ronald MacMillan (1899) ‘West River 100 years Ago". Prince Edward Island Magazine. (May issue, pp. 118-23); Dugald Henry (of Stanley Bridge) (1904) “Reminiscences of an octogenarian". The Patriot, (15 June 1904, p. 2); Charles Dickieson (1920) "New Glasgow as it was a Hundred Years Ago“. Another account is that of Alex. G. Shaw, “The Pioneers of West River“, in Past and Present of Prince Edward Island [1905] (pp. 3433-344a). By the way, there are three forest descriptions in these accounts: MacMillan (1899) wrote: “Few of the present generation know anything except by hearsay of what the early settlers had to contend with. Among other discouragements, they had to face the forest, fell the mighty beech, birch and other trees that are bounded so plentifully, burn them up and plant their scanty crop with their hoe between stumps. the bears and Wildcats were also very numerous and dangerous and many people lost their lives by them"; Shaw [1905] wrote: “The borders of West river, in the year 1800 had but few settlers. The land was covered with a heavy growth of wood, principally birch, spruce, hemlock and pine"; Dickieson (1920) wrote: 'What did the rest of the Province consist of? It was a wilderness of heavy trees of birch, beach, maple, pine, spruce. hemlock, and others."