mentions the use of cedar for ”fence and telegraph posts, sills of buildings, and shingles”.

Conclusion — The absence of comment on cedar in the early years is due I think to its restriction to the relatively less visited western part of the island, which only began to be extensively settled and known after 1800. In general the records indicate that cedar occurred in the areas and habitats where we would expect it in the west, and there it was viewed as a very valuable wood that was quickly exploited once settlement in the area had increased the area’s accessibility.

THE BROAD-LEAVED TREES

For the early British recorders the broad-Ieaved trees of Prince Edward Island presented fewer problems in their identification and naming than did the conifers. This was because the natural forest cover of most of the British Isles is broad- leaved forest, with any coniferous forest being restricted to the central highlands of Scotland.301 And within the broad-Ieaved forests of Prince Edward Island almost every tree species had a European equivalent with which the early recorders would have already been familiar. There was also the additional advantage for the recorders that the number of broad—leaved trees occurring on the island was comparatively low (only 20), which is not dissimilar to the number of native broad—leaves in the British Isles (about 29302).

AMERICAN BEECH (Fagus grandifolia) Identification and nomenclature — The single species of beech occurring on Prince Edward Island should not have presented any problems in its recognition. All recorders noted it simply as ’beech', apart from Bagster (1861), who called it "white beech (Fagus Sylvat/ca)” and Sutherland (1861) who noted the presence of two ’varieties’ which he called white and red beech. Though Perley (1847) in his study of the trees of New Brunswick also differentiated between these two,

resistance of cedar to decay, saying that due to its scarcity on the island, tamarack was used as a substitute on account of “its resistance to the air and rain".

30‘ Most of the British Isles lie within the zone of the European Deciduous Summer Forest, a broad-Ieaved forest-type (eg. see Eyre 1963, pp. 157-59).

302 The count of 29 is based on information in Tansley (1939), pp.

246—259.

188

which he termed "species", and he went on to say that the red beech was especially abundant on Prince Edward Island, this distinction is no longer given even varietal status by botanists.303 General distribution and abundance - Beech occurs in every one of the thirty-six complete tree lists (Table 1-5l30“, many of the list—makers indicating it to be among the principal trees of the forest.305 It is also one of the three top broad- Ieaved trees in the tree tally (Table 1-1), and there is a plethora of clear-cut statements indicating that beech was a particularly important tree in the island’s forests. Especially informative is Stewart's (1806) statement that beech "grows in great abundance, probably better than half of the Island is covered with it, in some districts forming nine-tenths of the forest". But we have also MacDonald (1804), based at Tracadie: ”the great bulk of the wood of this island consists of beech”; Hill (1839), at Cascumpec: beech is ”the predominant tree of the forest" and ”is super- abundant on the island"; MacGregor (1828): ”beech abounds in all parts of the Island”; Selkirk (1803): ”the most common species of timber are the beech and the maple"; Sutherland (1861): ”beech has always been abundant on the Island”; and Walsh (1803): ”beech trees are numerous.” We also have Perley's (1847) statement that what he called 'red beech’ was "so abundant [on the island] as to constitute extensive forests”. All the same, that beech forest did not occur everywhere on the island is deducible from Stewart's (1806) comments on the causes of the vole plagues (which he associated with beech mast production) — where he makes a reference to "those parts of

303 Perley (1847) in his “Report on the Forest Trees of New

Brunswick" (p. 154), cites ”Michaux the younger" [presumably the Flora Boreali—Amen‘cana of the botanist Andre Michaux, (b. 1770, d. 1855), published in 1803 (see Reveal and Pringle 1993)] as his authority for the recognition of two distinct species of beech in eastern North America, the white beech (Fagus Sylvestris) and the red (F. Ferruginea). Perley says they were distinguished especially on the colour of their wood, though he goes on to describe other differences in their leaf and tree form. However, such a varietal distinction is not mentioned by Tubbs and Houston (1990) (p. 331) in their chapter on American beech in the Silvics of North America I also note that Lewis (1914) (p. 23), in a report on the Maritime forest industry, records that the name ‘red beech' was sometimes used for beech trees growing under favourable conditions on good soil. Such trees, he said, produced “much better lumber" that was “often darker in coloui".

3°“ For the thirty-seventh list (Watson post 1904), the page that would have contained beech was missing,

305 The following recorders refer to it as a ‘principal‘, ‘prevailing' or 'chief‘ tree: Holland 1765: March; Patterson 1770; [Cambridge] 1796?; Walsh 1803; [Hill] 1819; MacGregor 1832; Martin 1837; Hill 1839; Murray 1839; Monro 1855; Anon. 1877.