the Point Prim peninsula, as well as on land to the south of the Pinette River, and possibly on the coast west of Cape Bear”. As for red pine, Bain (1890) mentions its presence at Mill River (presumably the Mill River in west Prince County). and Watson (post 1904) said that ”some fine specimens” occurred in “groves” at Brudenell Road.so Tree size - The pines were considered to be the largest of all of the island’s trees“, and though frequently the species is not stated, undoubtedly it was the white pine that was being singled out for this distinction. Words used to describe the size of the trees are: ‘enormous’, ’great’, ’huge’, ‘Iarge', ’very large’, ’extremely large’, ‘the largest', 'immense' and ’the grandest’“. However, Stewart (1806) is one of the few who gives actual numerical measurements: he noted that white pine could be ”three, four or five feet in diameter and of a great height"53 — though he added that ”the number of large sticks” was not great.“ 55 ‘9 All recorded by Selkirk (1803). I say ‘possibly' for the last because Selkirk may have been using the word ‘pines' here in the sense of the pine family (i.e. conifers in general). 5" For what it is worth, we also find pine in the list of species that Ready (1899) says had once occurred in the forests along the coast of Lot 20 (is the Sea View to Park Corner area), though this information must have been based on the reminiscences of older residents of the area. 5‘ Stewart (1806) calls them so. 5’2 ‘Enormous': Hill 1839; ‘great‘: Selkirk 1803; ‘huge‘: Johnstone 1822; [Lawson] 1877-1878; ‘large‘: Patterson 1770; [Lawson] 1877-1878; ‘the largest‘: Stewart 1806; ‘the grandest‘: Bain 1890; ‘immense: [Lawson] 1877-1878; ‘very large‘: [Lawson] 1877-1878; Curtis 1775 (though see footnote 41); ‘extremely large': Holland 1765 (October) — though in his March 1765 report he had said that the island's pines were "fit only for topmasts and bowsprits". The topmast was the middle of the three ‘sticks' forming a mast. Albion (1926) (p. 28) gives a diameter of 21 inches and a length of 23 yards for the main-topmast of a first-rate ship at the close of the Napoleonic wars, These values indicate the maximum size that we may take from Holland's March statement. it would seem that by October he had seen larger trees. 53 Elsewhere Stewart gives us an estimate of the height of at least some pine trees (presumably white pine), when he says that geese sometimes nested in deserted bald-eagles' nests, “on the top of a dead pine tree, eighty or ninety feet from the ground". 5” Stewart also makes the comment that the island's pines were generally larger than those found on the adjacent parts of the continent. lntriguingly, he also says that he had “seen one made into a main mast for a 64-gun ship, without any additions". The main mast of a 64—gun ship would have been 34% inches in diameter (Knight 1986, p. 222), and about as many yards in length. The question is: where and when on the island would Stewart have seen this? British naval ships did stop over on the island, especially during the American Revolution (eg. the Archer in 1779- 1780 — see [Ritter] 1780), but whether any were re-masted while on the island l do not know. 159 Smethurst (1774) gives quantitative information, even if approximate, for the size of the twelve hundred trees cut at Three Rivers in 1768: two hundred of the trees, he said, were ”more than two feet thro’ the butt”“, and the remainder “upwards of twelve inches ever”. For the size of the red pine, we are limited to the comment that it was smaller than the white pine“, while for the size of the jack pine we have only Walsh’s seemingly erroneous statement that it ”grows |arge”59. Habitat and community relationships — The pines were perceived to occur in two different types of tree community: either as single species stands, or as individual trees scattered in the upland hardwood forest. Although in many of the comments, the pine species is not named, in most cases it appears to have been white pine. Sing/e species stands — The evidence for the occurrence of pine in single species stands includes Smethurst’s (1774) use of the words ’grove’ and ‘groves’ in his description of the white pine cut at Three Rivers in 1768.60 We also have Selkirk’s (1803) description of areas at Pinette where pines occurred ”alone", and the most likely meaning of one of Thomas Curtis's (1775) run-on sentences, is that there were spots in the New London Bay area where pine occurred 55 Stewart‘s values are exceeded by the pines noted retrospectively by [Lawson] (1877-1878): in Lot 11: "5 and even 6 feet in diameter at the stump, and 100 feet high"; in the Brackley Point area: "17 feet in circumference [i.e. 5‘/2 feet in diameter] and 80 feet from the butt to the first or lowest branch". Lawson however gives a smaller size for the pre-settlement pines in the Alberton area: 3 to 372 feet in diameter, and another indicator of the size of pine trees is provided by his statement that some of the "large and lofty pines" found at Port Hill were capable of producing "4 and 5 tons of excellent timber" [Lee 160 to 200 cubic feet]. 56 Smethurst's concern to single out trees of greater than two feet in diameter must reflect his knowledge of the forest laws. An imperial Act of 1729 (2 George ll, c. 35), directed specifically at the New England colonies but applicable also to mainland Nova Scotia, which had been ceded to Great Britain in 1713 (and which from 1763 to 1769 included the Island of St. John), specified that special penalties were to apply to the illegal cutting of trees two feet and above in diameter (Malone 1964, p. 98). 57 i take this to mean ‘twelve inches and above‘. 5“ Stewart 1806; Bain 1890. 59 See footnote 13. so It is less certain that the phrase “fine groves of Pine and other Timber” as used in the advertisement of some 3000 acres of land in the Wilmot Valley area of Lot 25 (Schurman 1819, 1824) refers to single species stands of pine.