However, where pine occurred on its own, the soils were looked on much less favourably. Selkirk (1803) said such soils were ”generally barren and sandy", though he also noted that pines on their own were a sign of ”wet |and"72. Stewart (1806) mentions "pine barrens” — though noting that there were no extensive ones on the island. These barrens probably correspond to the ”worst land" in his soil classification scheme, on which, he says, there was nothing but ”scrubby pines”, as well as ”spruces and small white birch” with the soil being
”generally very light and sandy".73
Stewart also made a connection between the perceived low soil fertility of the ”burnt lands” left over from the French period and their past domination by pine — which, as noted above, he had deduced from the presence of dead trees and stumps. However, he considered that the low fertility of these lands, rather than being an effect of the fire, as many people believed, had been the reason for the fire: ”the predominant species upon them" (”pine and other resinous woods”, as he noted), ”[being] such as indicates an inferiority of soil". Therefore, he concluded, "the soil in its original state, could not have been of the best". Finally, Bain (1890) noted the connection of ”shrub pines” with the light sandy soils that occurred in parts of Kings and Prince Counties.
Properties and uses — The wood of the white pine was highly valued, both for domestic use“ and for export“, usually in the form of ”ton timber”76.
Bain (1890). It is the mixture of hardwoods and “a small portion of softwoods", to quote Johnstone (1822) (though he does not identify the species), that is the key. What these softwoods are, varies: Johnstone (1822) does not say; Stewart (1806) says “the different kinds of pine and fir”; Selkirk (1803): "a mixture of Pines", Hill (1839): “the larger species of the fir tribe” — which would include pine, and Bain (1890): “White Pine".
72 This contradiction may be due to Selkirk sometimes using the word ‘pine’ for the pine family, i.e. for the conifers collectively, which may be so in this latter case.
73 Near the top of the Hillsborough River a “scrubby growth of pines" was taken as a sign of poor land by H. Braddock in evidence to the Land Commission (1875).
7‘ Selkirk 1803; MacGregor 1828; Bain 1890.
’5 MacGregor 1828; Hill 1839. Stewart (1783) also refers to a particular intention to export pine, but “the ship never came“, and Selkirk (1809) outlines the details of a contract for the cutting of pine on his townships, which can only have been for export.
7“ The Islands House of Assembly (1773-1849) placed an emphasis on pine when attempting to set standards for the sizes of “ton timber" that could be exported (in 1817, 1820 and 1849). Ton timber was the name applied in the Maritimes to logs squared roughly to four sides using a broad axe. It was the common form in which pine and other logs were packed into a ship's hold for export to Great Britain (Lower 1973, p. 253).
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Although its potential as a source of masts receives mention in the early records77 it appears that its greater use was in house-building and cabinet work”, including logs for log houses”, and also for boards”, clapboards81 and shingles”. A special product of what I presume was the white pine is that recorded in 1840 by Sir George Seymour, the landlord of Lot 13, who crossed the Trout River in a dug-out canoe "made of a single pine” that held five adults“. John Cambridge in 1796 gives an overall impression of the scale of the use of pine when, in describing the annual pattern of activities in the colony, he said that one of the winter employments was ”cutting and
carrying pine-logs for the saw mills”84.
Because of all these uses, including its export, the island’s pine was fairly quickly harvested, with apparently the best trees being initially selected85. We have already noted the logging of pine for export by Smethurst (1774) and Lawson (post
’7 Holland 1765; [Clark] 1779; Stewart 1806.
’3 MacGregor 1828; Bain 1890. Benjamin Chappell (1775-1818) made use of pine (probably mostly white pine) for boat-building (1800) and for the boards, planks and beams used in house- building (1775, 1776, 1779, 1784, 1786, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1804, 1811, 1817); he also records the use of pine wood in making tables (1787, 1799), a bucket (1807), the bore and other parts for the town pump (1798, 1799, 1801), interior woodwork (stairs and rails) (1787), and fancy fencing (1779): he used ‘pine boles‘ to make the round tops of a 'Chinea‘ fence, presumably in a Chinese style.
’9 Marryat 1829; Hill 1839. 8° Selkirk (1803) said that pine (he mentions only the white pine) made the best boards. He also said that it was the “timber most in demand as lumbel" — ‘lumber‘ is a North American term for any kind of sawn wood - usually the product of saw-mills (Oxford 1989; Lower 1973, p. 252). Selkirk must have picked up the word from his informers on the island. Also Macphail (1939) describes a house with interior walls of “thick pine planks".
8‘ A 1774 act of the island's House of Assembly (1773-1849) that established regulations for the size and quality of clapboards offered for sale, makes reference only to pine clapboards.
82 Selkirk 1803; Johnstone 1822; Lawson (1877-1878). The island’s House of Assembly (1773-1849) in 1774 when establishing regulations for the size and quality of shingles offered for sale, referred only to pine shingles, though in acts of 1820 and 1849, both pine and cedar are mentioned as woods from which shingles could be made.
83 [Lawson] (1877-1878) also says that pine trunks were used for making “big canoes". It is also likely that the canoe “cut from the solid tree” carrying three men that Johnstone (1822) saw at Three Rivers was also made from a white pine, as perhaps were the two ”wooden canoes“ used by Selkirk (1803) at Pinette.
8“ [Cambridge] 1796?. 85 Evidence for this selective cutting comes from Stewart (1783) who says that on Lot 34 the unsupervised “Purchaser always culled out the finest Trees in different parts without making any regular Cut", leaving “the Pine wood miserably mangled".