in the autumn [the pigs] go into the woods where they 
     
     feed on the beech mast, which is in some years so 
     
     plentiful as to make them completely fat without any 
     
     other aid, but the pork thus fed is not reckoned good, 
     
     being soft and oily; the beech mast is however of great 
     
     use in bringing forward the store pigs that are to be kept 
     
     over the winter, as it makes them grow very fast and 
     
     they are easily wintered after a good run in the 
     
    
   
   
    
     woods.341 
     
    
   
   
    
     Aesthetic considerations - Beech is one of the few 
     
     trees that drew aesthetic comments from the 
     
     recorders: Stewart (1806) called it a large 
     
     handsome forest tree”, while Bain (1890), in 
     
     similar vein, described it as "one of the noble trees 
     
     of the forest”.342 However, it is Johnstone (1822) 
     
     who gives us the most extended aesthetic 
     
    
   
   
    
     appreciation of the beech woods: 
     
    
   
   
    
     11 
     
    
   
   
    
     Of all the different kinds of wood upon the Island, the 
     
     beech, when growing separately by itself, is the most 
     
     beautiful. The ground it occupies is the freest from 
     
     underwood, or any thing to obstruct one’s way, while in 
     
     summer it furnishes the most delightfully refreshing 
     
     shade over head of any I have met with. 
     
    
   
   
    
     I note also that Bain (1882) observed that as ”a 
     
     second-growth tree with its broad-spreading 
     
     limbs", beech made a beautiful shade tree, though 
     
     I suspect he may have been referring to trees 
     
     planted as shade trees, rather than to second- 
     
     growth trees growing naturally in the forest. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Conclusion — Beech was once the dominant tree of 
     
     the island’s hardwood forests and its presence 
     
     contributed much to the character of those 
     
     forests. However, because beech trees were an 
     
     indicator of good agricultural soil, the land it 
     
     occupied was especially susceptible to land 
     
     clearance, and as well, much of what remained in 
     
     woodlots in farming areas was probably cut and 
     
     burned for fuel. The final blow to the beech forests 
     
     that survived to the end of the nineteenth century 
     
     was the beech canker, a fungal disease that 
     
     arrived on the island in the early twentieth 
     
     centurym. We can thus now only imagine the 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     even at the end of the nineteenth century it was still noted as 
     
     occurring by Bain (1890). 
     
    

    
     3'“ Seventy years later Stewart’s comments were echoed, and 
     
     expanded, in the recollections of fourteen of the respondents who 
     
     answered the question on “hogs existing on beachnuts 50 years 
     
     ago“ (Questionnaire 1876). 
     
    

    
     3‘2 In an earlier account ([Bain] 1882), he described its growth- 
     
     form “in the primitive forest" with “its great trunk, silvery grey, 
     
     lashed with purple, [mounting] aloft with but few tortuous arms from 
     
     its summit". 
     
    
   
   
    
     3“ Erskine, 1960, p. 132; Tubbs & Houston 1990, pp. 329-30. 
     
    
   
   
    
     194 
     
    
   
   
    
     large ’noble’ beech trees that once comprised 
     
     much of the island’s hardwood forests. If any tree 
     
     is deserving of the title of ’provincial tree’ of 
     
     Prince Edward Island it is surely the beech. 
     
    
   
   
    
     THE MAPLES 
     
    
   
   
    
     Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) 
     
    

    
     Red maple (Acer rubrum) 
     
    

    
     Striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum) 
     
     Mountain maple (Acer spicatum) 
     
    
   
   
    
     Identification and nomenclature The 
     
     identification of the maple trees of Prince Edward 
     
     Island was confounded by the fact that four 
     
     species of maple occur on the island. Two of these 
     
     can form very large trees (sugar maple and red 
     
     maple), while the other two (striped maple and 
     
     mountain maple) are usually present only as 
     
     understorey trees or shrubs. Though the two 
     
     larger species may be readily distinguished from 
     
     each other by their leaves and other properties, 
     
     this appears not to have always been done. In 
     
     fact of the thirty—six recorders who made lists of 
     
     the island’s trees, only sixteen attempted to 
     
     differentiate between the individual maple species 
     
     (Table 1-6).344 
     
    
   
   
    
     All sixteen appear to record the presence of the 
     
     sugar maple (Acer saccharum) on the island — 
     
     though under a variety of names: curled345 or 
     
    
   
   
    
     curly3‘16 maplem, rock maple348 3“" 
     
    
   
   
    
     , black maple . 
     
     black sugar map|e35°, bird’s eye or bird-eye 
     
    
   
   
    
     3“ For the thirty-seventh list ([Watson] post 1904), the page that 
     
     would have contained the maples was missing. 
     
    
   
   
    
     3‘5 Holland 1764, 1765: October; Chappell 1775-1818 (in 1778); 
     
     [Clark] 1779; Stewart 1806; Hill 1839, 
     
    
   
   
    
     “6 Johnstone 1822; MacGregor 1828. 
     
    
   
   
    
     W The name “curled" or “curly maple" appears to have first been 
     
    
   
   
    
     used in North America as a descriptive name for the wood of 
     
     maple exhibiting a particular undulating pattern in its grain, The 
     
     name was thence transferred to the maple trees yielding this 
     
     particular kind of wood. Since wood of either A. saccharum or A. 
     
     rubrum could exhibit this grain pattern (Perley 1847, pp. 136, 138), 
     
     trees of either species could be called ‘curled maple‘. Though it 
     
     appears that the name ‘curled maple' was used more widely on the 
     
     island (and elsewhere) as a species name for the sugar maple 
     
     rather than for the red maple, it is evident that the “white or curled 
     
     maple" of [Cambridge] (1796?) and Walsh (1803) must in fact be 
     
     Acer rubrum, since they already have A. saccharum in their lists 
     
     under the name “black or sugar maple". 
     
    
   
   
    
     3“ Stewart 1806; Johnstone 1822; MacGregor 1828; Hill 1839; 
     
     Lawson 1851; Bagster 1861. 
     
    
   
   
    
     3‘9 [Cambridge] 1796?; Walsh 1803. 
     
    
   
   
    
     35" Sutherland 1861.