recorders, except for the more comprehensive botanical recorders of the late nineteenth century.

Maples were one of the three leading hardwoods in the tree tally (Table 1-1), and we have a number of useful early comments indicating the high abundance of the maples on the island: an anonymous letter writer in 1771 wrote that maple trees [were] "plenty on every part of the Island”36“, while Walsh (1803) recorded that what he calls ”white or curled” maple [i.e. A. rubrum] and ”black or sugar" maple [i.e. A. saccharum] were "tolerably numerous” on the island. Stewart (1806) noted that sugar maple trees were ”found in more or less plenty all over the Island where the original growth of forest remains” — which suggests a wide distribution. Selkirk (1805) noted that maple (along with beech) was ”the most common species of timber” on the island, though he went on to say that ”some of the many varieties of maple are valuable and beautiful timber, but these are not in so great abundance”365. He also later makes reference to ”beech and maple lands” as if it were a synonym for the island’s hardwood forest and with the implication that they were of extensive distribution. I also note that MacDonald (1804) recorded that in comparison with beech there were ”much fewer quantities" of maple (as well as other trees) on the island. Finally, Bagster’s (1861) reference to ”districts where [sugar maples] have been spared in sufficient numbers to furnish the requisite quantity for sugar making” indicates that by the 18605 sugar maples had been depleted in at least some parts of the island. We may thus conclude that maple trees were initially widespread and abundant on the island, though not as abundant as beech.

Specific areas — 'Maple’ or ’maples’ (rarely is the species specified) are recorded at many of the same sites discussed earlier for beech — and by the same recorders (Figure 1—8): along the Richmond Bay frontage of Lot 13366, including both sides of the Trout River, as well as on the ridge of land running inland south of the same river367; in the

36‘ Anon. 1771. 365 The comparison may be with the "black birch” that he had just mentioned in the preceding sentence. It is possible that the variety of maple that Selkirk is here referring to is the bird‘s eye maple, or perhaps also trees exhibiting a curled grain — though he makes no mention ofthese varieties anywhere in his writings on the island.

356 Morris 1769; Palmer 1815. 367 Gray 1793. The other maple encountered by Gray (1793) in his journey across Lot 13, the one in the wet ash swamp in the middle of the lot, must have been red maple,

area of the New London settlement at

Elizabethtownm; along the portage from the

French village of Point Prim to the Pinette River, as well as on the south side of the Pinette River (probably its North Branch) ”50 or 100 yards back

from the water”369; ”on the North of Point Prim”359; and along the shore to the west of Wood Islands on ”the land above the bank” — implying

away from the shoreline“; at Mount Stewart, on

the south side of the Hillsborough Riverm; in the

environs of Charlottetown”; in the hardwood forests of Lot 47372; on Oulton Island in Cascumpec Baym; in the isthmus between

Bedeque and Malpeque Baysm; at Springfield“; and as a component of the ’primitive’ or 'ancient forest" at 'Wiltshire, Elliots Mills and near York Point376. Red maple is specifically recorded about three-quarters of a mile inland from the shore along the ’front’ of Lot 24, as well as on a couple

of farms in the same lot”.

’Maple’ also formed an element of the same hardwood forest that contained beech ”buried by the drifting sands” near the mouth of St. Peters Bay, noted by Gesner (1846), while in Prince County, on the mainland opposite Hog Island, he found maple trees at sea level in a hardwood forest that had succumbed to the encroaching sea.

3“ Curtis 1775; Chappell 1775-1818. Chappell in 1775 specifically mentions “fetching" maple at “the french River" [i.e. French River], and in March 1778 he records that “the Maple trees in the woods just begin to run in juice" — presumably these were sugar maples at or near Elizabethtown. In the same year he also made a card-table from “Cirl‘d Maple“ [probably sugar maple].

36" Selkirk (1803).

370 MacGregor 1828. 3“ Patterson 1770; MacGregor 1828; Chappell 1775-1818. Chappell records working with ‘maple' nine times in the years

between 1798 and 1805, and once with ‘white maple' (in 1801).

372 Stewart 1831.

373 Hill 1839.

3" Gesner1846. 375 Bain (1868-1884) on 6 February 1873 recorded the presence of all four maple species at Springfield, including “many small A Pen. & montanum" [i.e. striped and mountain maple].

376 At Wiltshire: “on the Wiltshire road, about the head-waters of Howell‘s Brook": [Bain] 1882; at Elliots Mills: [Bain] (1883); near York Point: “on the rear of Howard's farm": Bain 1868-1884 (1879). 377 Land Commission 1875: evidence of William McNeil) and Joseph Doucette of Lot 24 - McNeil) uses the name “white maple' for the species,

197