Lawson, J. (1851) Letters on Prince Edward Island. Hazard, Charlottetown, P.E.l. 76 pp. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     John Lawson was a Charlottetown lawyer who had moved to Prince Edward Island from Halifax in the 78203. 
     
     Ostensibly, his Letters are addressed to a person who is totally unfamiliar with the island and even with British North 
     
     America. Lawson thus seems to have had in mind a British Isles readership — though unlike many of the other early 
     
     descriptive accounts of the island, it was not in fact printed in England but on the island itself. Whether it ever 
     
     received a wide circulation among its intended readership is not known. It large/y consists of the description of a 
     
     series of travels through all parts of the island with comments inter alia on the landscape, villages, homesteads and 
     
     farming practices. In toto the Letters are also intended to serve as a guide for prospective immigrants. Lawson 
     
     must have had some botanical know/edge since Bagster (786 7) refers to him as the ”Herbarum peristus of 
     
     Charlottetown”, crediting him for providing help with his own plant list. All of Lawson ’3 information appears to be 
     
     based on his own first-hand observations except for western Prince County, for which he says he used a friend ’3 
     
     account: ”as far as / have been able in his own words”. Overall, there are only a few references to the forest in the 
     
     Letters, and all of these are generalized except for the west Prince area, though he does describe a number of forest— 
     
     re/ated activities and attitudes. 
     
    
   
   
    
     REFERENCES: 
     
     Beck, Boyde. (1988) The fairest isle — Prince Edward Island in its descriptive literature, 1750-1860. The Island 
     
     Magazine. No. 23: 19-26. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bagster, C. B. (1861) The Progress and Prospects of Prince Edward Island. John Ings, Charlottetown, P.E.l. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Game animals. As to venison, you must not expect it; both the moose and the cariboo having long 
     
     since been unheard of; nothing but a time-worn antler occasionally found, serving to 
     
     remind us that they were once denizons of the forest. Should you, however, fancy 
     
     a bear's ham, there are those who, during the winter, will be able to accomodate 
     
     you—and famously fat they sometimes are. Rabbits, as they are called—but in reality 
     
     small hares; for they never burrow, and have dark flesh—are to be had during the 
     
     winter, at from 3d. to 4d. each; and they make a delicious dish, either roasted, boiled, 
     
     stewed, or made into a curry. The ruffed grouse (tetrao umbeI/us), misnamed 
     
    
   
   
    
     The grouse and partridge, is also at times very plentiful, (much depending upon the supply of food in 
     
     the beech-mast. the woods, such as beech-mast &c), 6d. to 9d. each—a most delicious bird, and 
     
     ”plump as a partridge" [p.81 
     
    
   
   
    
     I would advise the emigrant to be upon his guard when places of any kind are offered, 
     
     and to be by no means in a hurry to settle himself. Let him look well to the condition 
     
     of the land, both that which is cleared and that which is in a state of wilderness, and 
     
     Forest as an more particularly the latter. If there be a vigorous growth of hard wood—as we term 
     
     indicator of 50,-], it—such as rock-maple, black-birch and beech, he may be tolerably sure that the soil 
     
     is good; if, on the contrary, the prevailing wood is white-birch, spruce (or fir, more 
     
     properly), or hemlock (a species of fir you know nothing about), the soil is 
     
     questionable. It is, moreover, of importance to have a good lot of fire wood, which 
     
     these last mentioned trees are unfit for. [p. 25] 
     
    
   
   
    
     If [the cow] be farrow, and turned out in the woods, she will yield him more beef and 
     
     tallow in the autumn than he can buy of the butchers for twice the money. The breed 
     
     of cattle has improved wonderfully within these 20 years; It is with sheep, as with 
     
     cows: those who live in the woods are not so particular as to breed, as those in the 
     
     clearance—the wandering in the woods is against their having large fleeces. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Cows and sheep 
     
     in the woods. 
     
    
   
   
    
     [p. 26] 
     
     The /3V0Ut on either side of [the roads] are laid out farms, having fronts of 10 chains, and 
     
     0f the fa’mS' extending into the rear near 100 . The fact was, that the early settlers were all 
     
    
   
   
    
     desirous of having fronts on the sea-coast, the only highway then in existence and, 
     
    

    
     . it became necessary to divide it into the greatest possible number of fronts, and 
     
     ten chains was pitched upon, as the least number that would be accepted, or that it 
     
     was decent to offer; and in fact, when the settler reflected that by the time he had 
     
    
   
   
    
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