composition and structure from the original pre- settlement forest. However, as mentioned above, rather than describing and classifying the disturbed and successional forests that were the contemporary norm, every one of the authors, in their forest descriptions and mappings, was in effect working conceptually with the forest-types that would have occurred before forest clearance.18 Even so, only two of the studies make direct reference to this pre-settlement forest: Clark, who in doing so relied largely on Stilgenbauer's map, modifying its title to represent the "presumed variation in forest cover as of the late eighteenth century” (Figure 4); and Erskine who, making use of his extensive field-based knowledge of the forests as they existed in the 19505, as well as a familiarity with some of the historical literature on the forests”, conjectured in some depth about the types of forest that were likely to have occurred before settlement, including commentary on their geographic distribution. Because in my own studies of the present-day forest-types of Prince Edward Island”, l have used Erskine’s pre-settlement forest-types as a hypothetical standard with which to compare the forest of the 19903, I consider it useful to include here a table summarising Erskine’s forest-types as presented in his text (Table 2).

Aspects of forest ecology: The forest ground vegetation — Erskine, since he was compiling a comprehensive flora for the island, was in a position to describe in some detail the shrub and ground vegetation of the various forest-types occurring on the island, both that of his conjectured pre-settlement types, as well as of the successional forests resulting from disturbance. Also, Loucks provides a brief list of the characteristic shrubs and ground plants for each of his two ’ecoregions’ that extend to the island.

18

Rather than this approach being explicitly stated (Clark and Erskine are exceptions), this is implied by most of the authors. it is probably less true for Stilgenbauer whose ‘forest belt’ descriptions appear in part to reflect the degraded forests of the 1920s

‘9 Erskine’s historical sources comprised one primary source (Stewart 1806) and two secondary sources (Harvey 1926; Gaudet 1956), both of which extracted material verbatim from a limited range of the earlier records, For a more comprehensive assessment of the forest descriptions in the historical literature, see my two historical reports (Sobey 2002; 2006).

2° See Sobey 1995a, and Sobey & Glen 1999; 2002; 2004.

Forest succession — Though to varying degrees all of the authors make reference to the fact that in the twentieth century much of the island was under successional forest, it is again only Erskine who provides us with a detailed description of the successional stages resulting from the various forest disturbances associated with European settlement (including brief lists of their tree, shrub and ground flora components).

CONCLUSIONS

As noted, none of the six studies aimed to provide a comprehensive picture of the forests of Prince Edward Island, either of the twentieth century or before European settlement. Even so, assembling the six works in a single publication enables us to obtain a picture of the extent and quality of the information available on the island’s forests in scientific publications up to 1961. Also, some of the studies provide a general description of both the tree species composition of the island’s forests and the forest-types occurring, at the same time placing them within a wider continental context. However, in terms of their contribution to historical studies of the forest, because their comments are very generalised, most are of little value. The exception is Erskine, but even his descriptions were affected by his limited examination of the historical literature.

In the last thirty years, the above deficiencies in forest description have been rectified by the ten- yearly forest inventories that have been carried out by the provincial forestry branch, analysis of which has led to a greater understanding of the present- day forests.21 Also my own analysis of the historical literature on the island’s forests in the first two parts of this series (of which this report is the third) has greatly expanded the information available on the early forests of the island.22

2‘ There is an extensive literature on the current forests of the

island, largely concerned with wood production, but also showing tree species distributions, in the form of provincial government reports coming out of the forest inventories of 1981, 1991 and 2001. In addition, further ecological analysis of the current forests has been carried out using data collected in the 1991 inventory (see Sobey 1993, 1995a, 1995b; Sobey & Glen 1999, 2002, 2004).

22 See Sobey 2002; 2006.