of over forty years before.663 This led him to suggest that she try the township bordering on the west (Lot 35), though even here he thought suitable wood would only be found on the western side of Tracadie Bay in the Winter River area (presumably, again, due to the French fires having burned the rest). Next, he wrote, if permission to get the wood from that township could not be obtained, she should consider the next township on the west (Lot 34), or even further west still, in Lot 21 at the Clark settlement on New London Bay, or in the area of Malpeque Bay. However, for the wood that would need to be sawn (the ’boards’, ’clapboards’, ’shingles’ and ’laths’), that the major option was importing them from Pictou in Nova Scotia — ”the only place I can think of where you may get these materials” — is an indicator of the scarcity of sawmills, the alternative, he wrote, being to have them pit-sawn by Acadian sawyers using island wood. It is interesting, however, that even sixteen years later, boards and planks were still being imported from Nova Scotia for the building of the military barracks at Charlottetown, though in this case it seems that it was because a large number of boards were required over a short period, and it w0uld have been as easy to transport them from across the strait as from more distant places on the island.664 These wood shortages experienced by Captain MacDonald and the island's government were undoubtedly localised and/or temporary difficulties. However, in the nineteenth century, as settlement advanced and land clearance and fires progressively ate into the forest, there must have been many others who experienced similar problems, especially from about 1820 when the population began to accelerate. One person who complained of a shortage of construction wood — though there may be an element of exaggeration in 663 See pp. 54-55 above. 65‘ The evidence for this particular importing is found in the daybook of Benjamin Chappell (1775-1818). Several times between 1798 and 1800 Chappell records the arrival of a schooner from Ramshack (Le. Ramsheg, now Wallace, Nova Scotia) with a cargo of boards or planks, some of which he was paid by the government to measure: 30 April, 9 May 1798 [‘two inch plank‘]; 5 Dec. 1799 [10 planks of 138 feet; 109 boards of 2,433 feet]; 12 May 1800 [7,723 feet of boards ”besides refuge boards, all pine — no plank and but midlin boards"], 8 Oct, 1800 [a “cargo of boards"]. Since boards were also at the same time coming from an island source (Chappell mentions ‘West River’ [9 May 1798]), it may have been the large quantity needed over a short period, rather than a wood shortage on the island, that necessitated the government seeking some from outside the colony. 99 his account — is the anonymous author of an anti- proprietorial satirical essay printed in 1836 as a letter to the editor of the Royal Gazette.665 The essay contains a number of fictional characters, one of whom, ‘Squire Clod' (who, despite his ’title’, is really an ordinary island farmer) corrects the mis—impression of the new 'Emigrant’ from England, about the ’convenience’ of the timber on the island for building: ”there is very little of the timber you have seen would answer for building — some of it would not last any time, and others so rough and knotty, it would break all our tools to work it”. As well, other writers in the 18305 were also noting that the wood suited to the timber export trade was in declines“, and by 1860 we have statements to the effect that the wood used in ship-building was also becoming scarce. A witness to the Land Commission of that year said that there were ”many instances” over ”the whole island” of wood, including even boards and shingles, being imported“. Certainly by the 18703 (if not before) it was becoming necessary to import some of the wood used in ship-building from off the island (see below). The remaining quarter-century must have seen the last of any large-scale lumbering on the island, for thirty years later Father Alfred Burke categorically stated in a paper read to the Canadian Forestry Association in 1902 that the island was ”obliged to import all of its lumber" 668,. and though this may not have been strictly true, it must have been so for wood of any large size. 559 “5 Anon. 1836. 5“ Bouchette 1832, Murray 1839, Hill 1839. 667 Land Commission (1860): evidence of Donald Montgomery, the speaker of the House of Assembly. 1 have not examined the custom records for the importing of wood to the island, but I note that McAskill (1987) (p. 26) cites figures indicating the importing of large quantities of ‘boards', ‘deals‘ and shingles from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, even at a time (the 18405 and 505) when the island was itself exporting large quantities of the same types of lumber. 668 Burke 1902. 669 I note that Clinton Morrison's detailed study of lumbering and milling in a well-wooded township, Lot 11, indicates that lumbering and milling were very active in the area until about 1900 when the last of the large timber trees became exhausted, though a few small-scale lumbering and milling operations continued into the first half of the twentieth century producing small items such as boards, barrel staves and box wood (see Morrison 1983, pp. 152-57),