this drier type of community‘“. This dry stunted spruce community is less often described by the recorders, but an example may be that recorded by Selkirk (1803) at Pinette: ”the wood at the edge of the [Pinette] River is stunted spruce & has a forbidding appearance — also the soil on being scratched up is a white sand at top, but red below”‘6“.
Other climax spruce communities - The above black spruce communities comprised small trees of stunted growth. Where then did the larger black spruce trees referred to by Stewart (1806)165 occur? They may have occurred as single species stands on slightly less wet sites, perhaps even in the wet intervales or in low areas within the hardwood forest areas, though there they may have also come into contact with red spruce. Though such a forest-type of large black spruce trees is reported as occurring widely in neighbouring New Brunswick‘“, the only evidence surviving in the records, of its occurrence on the island is found in the testimony given by several tenant farmers to the Land Commission (1875)
163 Land Commission 1875: Robert Holton (Lot 9) seems in his terminology to distinguish between the “black spruce swamps" on the township, and the "barren" land that had “scrubby black spruce", We can also read into the terminology used by other witnesses a distinction between ‘barren land' and ‘swamps‘ (though they do not always specify the trees occurring): John Cocheran of Lot 7, re-enforced by Peter Doyle from the same township, referred to “barren land and swamps" on the lot, and he characterised some of the barren land as having "low spruce bushes"; Joseph Mooreshead referred to the poor land of Lot 10 as “swamps and barrens“; and the surveyor Alexander Anderson, in commenting on Lot 13, stated that there were “some swamps and some barren lands" on the lot — earlier he had said that the land in Lot 16 known as “barrens” comprised nothing but “a few small bushes and some small spruce", while in reference to Lot 9 he had said “l would call that land barren on which there is only small spruce as big as your wrist". I might add that other witnesses to the Commission use the term "spruce barren" but do not indicate whether they are referring specifically to drier land (i.e. Felix McKinnon of Lot 9 and John Ramsay of Lot 16),
16‘ The site of this description can be exactly located on the southern shore of the North Branch of the Pinette River where Selkirk first came ashore after crossing the river in a ”wooden canoe". Later in his journal he generalises the forest-type to all of the shores of the Pinette River system: "going down to Pinette the shores everywhere appeared poor stunted trees, but the appearances better within".
‘65 Stewart recorded that black spruce “often grew into a large tree". ‘65 Perley (1847) (pp. 417-418) describes such black spruce forests in New Brunswick (which constituted “a third part of the forests" of the province) as occurring “in valleys where the soil is black, humid, deep, and covered with a thick bed of moss". The trees were 18 to 24 inches in diameter on such sites, with the trees being three to five feet apart. On the slopes of hills where the soil was “stony, dry and covered with a thin layer of moss”, tree growth was “less luxuriant“.
170
concerning Lots 7, 9, 10 and 16 in the west of the province, and Lot 36 in the east: in Lot 7, a witness made a point of distinguishing what he called ”spruce land” from the "bad land" of the lotm, while several tenant farmers from Lot 9 also distinguished the ”spruce land" in the part of the lot between the Brae River and the border with Lot 10, from the ”barrens” and “barren land” in the same area. They all imply that larger, more valuable and harvestable spruce trees had once occurred on this ”spruce land”‘68. Also, in the adjacent Lot 10, ”large” spruce and fir (but by that time "pretty well culled”) had occurred on what two witnesses called ”second quality land"‘69. Then another witness said that land in Lot 16 that had once had spruce on it, which had been "stripped” for ”[railway] sleepers", was ”a little drier” than a "juniper swamp” in the same area”°. Finally, the ”fine trees of spruce” (they were ”second-growth” trees and ”not of the primitive forest") that had once occupied the "low lands” of the MacDonald estate in Lot 36, may also be examples of the larger black spruce trees noted by Stewart ”8061‘“. There is also Lawson's (1877- 1878) retrospective description of the large spruce trees that occurred in the Brackley Point area at the time of settlement (3 feet in diameter and 100 feet high), which seemed to have also occurred in clusters.172
There is one other seemingly climax forest community that contained spruce, that is mentioned in the records. Selkirk (1803) refers to red spruce as a tree component of a "rich swamp”. Specifically, he says ”Red Spruce
'67 Land Commission 1875: evidence of Peter Doyle. He said the
“spruce land" on Lot 7 was worth 60 cents an acre (he valued hardwood land at 80 cents), while the “bad land" was worth nothing.
‘68 Land Commission 1875: Lot 9: Robert Holton noted a “spruce ridge" on which he had "lumbered"; John McKaller said “spruce land" was worth 20 cents an acre, as opposed to barren land which was worth nothing; Donald McPhee said that he did not call “spruce land" barren; while the surveyor Alexander Anderson said “some of the spruce land“ in the area, comprising “spruce and fir and ash" was "very good".
‘39 Land Commission 1875: evidence of Joseph Mooreshed, supported by that of Daniel McDonald.
17° Land Commission 1875: evidence of Donald Campbell.
17' Land Commission 1875: evidence of the surveyor Owen Curtis for Lot 36. Curtis also said that he “distinguished between the softwood land and the swamps" in the area, saying that “the softwood land is dry when the timber has been taken off".
‘72 I get this impression from the fact that they "outnumbered the pines, and [extended] their stately forms even to the sea weed covered shore".