became important as settlement progressed. However, white birch (Betu/a papyrifera) seems to have attracted attention right from the beginning, probably because of its distinctive white bark: it occurs in 21 of the tree—lists (as either 'white’ or ‘canoe’ birch) (Table 1-5), just three less than the score for Betu/a a/leghan/ensis. The conifer trees — All six conifer trees occur at a fairly high level in the thirty-seven tree-lists (Table 1—9A, Figure 1-15), pine and spruce leading (they are in 31 and 30 lists respectively), followed by fir, hemlock, tamarack and cedar, which occur in 19 to 24 of the lists. In the total tally (Table 1-98, Figure 1-16), the trees tend to spread out more, with spruce with its 100 records being the clear leader, followed by pine and fir (with 67 and 46 records respectively), and then hemlock, tamarack and cedar trailing far behind, with between 23 and 25 records. The low level for cedar must be due to its restriction to the west of the island. 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of lists FIGURE 1-15. The frequency of each of the conifer genera in the 37 lists of the island's trees made by British period recorders. 120 Tally of species 0'3 O FIGURE 1-16. The frequency of each of the conifer genera in a tally of all other records apart from the tree lists. 225 The higher scores for pine and spruce suggest that they had a greater prevalence and overall distribution in the forests of the island than the other four conifers, which have tree list scores similar to those of the less important hardwood trees. The clear lead of spruce in the total tally may be due to its ubiquity, comprising as it does, three different species occurring in a variety of habitats, including successional habitats resulting from fire and forest disturbance, which are likely to have increased in prevalence as the nineteenth century progressed. For the other four conifers, the contemporary comments suggest that they, like the lower-scoring hardwoods, were also less common, being either minority components of the hardwood forest (hemlock and fir), or associated with wetter sites (cedar and tamarack), or with successional forest (fir). In terms of the value of all of this as an indicator of the relative abundance of the conifers two caveats should be borne in mind: one, as we have seen, is that there was some looseness in the application of the names ’pine’ and ’fir’, they being used by a few recorders for the conifers in general, i.e. in the sense of the pine or fir family. Secondly, in the early period there may have been a positive bias towards the recording of pine, especially white pine, which would have enhanced its score, though the nature of this bias also means that by 1850, due to its selective harvesting, pine probably no longer had the same importance in the forests that it had had earlier.559 In conclusion, I think that all that we can say in terms of the relative abundance of the conifers over the whole island, is that hemlock, tamarack and cedar were less abundant than spruce, pine and fir. Several conifers also contributed a minority element to the upland hardwood forest, with their occurrence in such forests being taken as an indicator of soils more suitable for agriculture than those under pure hardwood forest.560 White pine and hemlock are two of the species named, while the 'spruce' mentioned in such contexts is likely to 559 In fact, using 1850 as a dividing point, I find that the number of references to pine in the total tally from before 1850 (Table 1-1) totals 42, while 25 were from after 1850. However, transferring the eleven retrospective references (i.e. those referring to the past presence of pine) from the post-1850 records to the pre-1850, means that 53 of the pine records refer to the period before 1850, while only 14 refer to the later period. (The eleven retrospective records were: Land Commission 1860 - 1; Sutherland 1861 - 1; Land Commission 1875 - 1; [Lawson] 1877-1878 - 7; and Ready 1899 - 1.) 55° See Table 3. and the associated commentary, in the main text.