intermixed with Ash, Alder, Currants etc. shows a rich swamp capable of being made into excellent meadow” he was contrasting it with the ’swamps' containing black spruce. The tree and shrub associates that he names (ash, alder and currants) suggests that it is a type of the island's ’wet rich woodland’ sensu Sobey (1995)”3. Success/anal communities containing spruce: ’Old- fie/a" white spruce The best description of spruce as an element in the succession on abandoned farmland is given by Johnstone (1822): After the land here has been cleared and under cultivation for many years, and afterwards left to itself, it is immediately covered anew with some kind of wood, generally of spruce, var (silver fir) [i.e. balsam fir] and white birch. This is verified in all the clearances the French had made upon it more than sixty years ago. The land then cleared has all returned to its natural state, and now grown up with wood of the above descriptions. That spruce was the principal tree in such old-field succession is evident from Stewart (1806) who said that what he called ’red spruce’174 ”sometimes grows on old cleared lands, which have been long out of cultivation [where] it forms very ornamental groves, its figure being regularly conical", while Walsh (1803) also noted its colonizing ability: ”no sooner is a Tract cleared of wood than a young Grove of Spruces immediately spring up". Specific examples of spruce as a colonizer of old-field sites are given by Selkirk (1803) for the 'Fort Farm’ (i.e. at Fort Amherst) in Lot 65175, and by Gesner (1846) for Lots 13 and 17”“. It is also probable that the ”second growth of spruce" recorded on ”very light soil” 'fronting’ the Wheatley River in Lot 24 was also old-field white sprucem. Presumably the same colonizing abilities that enabled spruce to grow readily on abandoned ‘73 See also Sobey & Glen (2002). 174 See footnote 97. 175 He implies that the land abandonment dated not from the end of the French period but rather from the departure of Governor Patterson who had ‘improved' the farm - Patterson had left the island in 1787, sixteen years before Selkirk's visit. ”6 Gesner recorded “a thick growth of fir and spruce" on the site of the "old French Village“ of Malpec at Low Point in Lot 13. He also reported that on the ‘peninsula’ between Bedeque and Richmond Bays (he should have said ‘isthmus') (i.e. Lot 17) “where the land is not cultivated, the birch and maple have been succeeded by groves of spruce and fir". ‘77 Land Commission (1875): evidence of Joseph Doucettei 171 fields favoured its occurrence along field boundaries: Ward (1887) noted its presence in hedgerows and on what she called ”low zigzag walls of sodded stones”. Spruce in the succession on burned sites — The spruces were also important trees in the succession occurring after forest fires. Both Johnstone (1822) and MacGregor (1828) recorded that spruce (species unspecified) was a principal colonizer of such burned sites“. In particular both recorders noted the presence of spruce as one of the indicators of the area of what they called the ’tremendous’ or ’great’ fire of the French period. According to Johnstone other colonizers with spruce at such sites were "var [i.e. balsam fir] and white birch”, while MacGregor listed ”white birches, poplars and wild cherry". And Dawson (1868) made the general observation that after fire, areas of "fine hardwood forest" were succeeded by ”spruce and fir”. Finally, Selkirk (1803), as well as Mollison (1905) a hundred years later, noted spruce as a colonizer of specific areas that had been subject to forest fire many years before“. Spruce in the succession on cut—over sites — A careful analysis of Johnstone's (1822) comments on old-field succession indicates that such succession by spruces (as well as fir and white birch) could also occur after the simple ”cutting of the timber” without any further clearance for agriculture‘“. This is supported by Dawson’s (1868) observation that on the island ”forests of beech on light soils" when ”removed for firewood [were] sometimes succeeded by spruce and fir”. Properties and uses — The properties of the wood of the spruces are not described in any detail, other than Stewart (1806) saying that the wood of ”a To be precise, MacGregor said that spruce was one of the species that had “sprung up" on areas that before the fire had been covered by pine forests ”9 Selkirk (1803): along the shore near Wood Islands, where the spruce was accompanied by ‘birch‘ — he was told the fire had happened “30 or 40 years ago"; Mollison (1905): along the northern border of Lot 12, where fir was a fellow coloniser, in a succession that had included blueberries. He thought that the fire had occurred about 1840‘ 13° This is evident from the wording in the following extract from Johnstone‘s ‘Letter Second': “where the timber is cut, and not burnt upon the surface, it will soon spring up in new wood, but always of a different kind from what was upon it before, Indeed it has as great a tendency to return to the production of timber of some kind or other even after[my italics] cultivation has commenced" The “even after' stresses that he intended his initial comment to be applicable to sites that had been only out without cultivation commencing.