Mollison, John [1905] ‘Prince County'. in: Mackinnon, D. A. & Warburton, A. B. (editors), Past and 
     
     Present of Prince Edward Island. Bowen & Co., Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     John Mollison (b. 7850, d. 793 7) was born in Fife, Scotland but emigrated to Prince Edward Island at the age of 
     
     eleven in 786 1 to join his maternal grandparents at Bideford who had emigrated to the island from Scotland ten 
     
     years before. After appren ticing as a carriage—maker in Ellerslie he attended the Central Academy in Charlottetown 
     
     where he obtained a teacher’s licence, later teaching school at Tyne Valley and Lot 7 7. Sometime before 7900 he 
     
     moved to Summerside to take up employment with The Pioneer, 6 local newspaper, of which he eventually became 
     
     sole editor. His long article in Past and Present was probably written when he was literary editor of the paper. It 
     
     includes a medley of the civil, folk and natural history of the county, especially of its western parts. The only 
     
     section relevant to the forests are his comments on the ’barrens’ of Prince County and of the role of fire in their 
     
     creation. The date of the particular fire that he mentions is clearly an estimate but given its location he must have 
     
     been very familiar with the landscape left by the fire. 
     
    
   
   
    
     REFERENCE: Morrison, J. C., Jnr. (1983) Along the North Shore: A Social History of Township 7 7, PEI, 7765—7982. 
     
     Volume ll. Williams & Crue, Summerside, PEI. (p. 441). 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     The barrens. Another feature of Prince county is what are known as ”the barrens”— certain lands 
     
     upon which, seemingly, but little grows save some low growing bushes, upon one of 
     
     which a small berry, dark blue in color and about the size of a pea, is produced. It is 
     
     named from its color, the blueberry, and is a mild tasting and much relished fruit. 
     
     There is little doubt that these lands are made barren by large forest fires which 
     
     happen in mid-summer during a heated spell of weather. Occasionally, in a generation, 
     
     so great is the summer drought, that some thin soils are almost completely robbed of 
     
     their moisture. When such is the case and a forest fire begins, it sweeps everything 
     
     before it even the soil in some favourable places. When this takes place many years 
     
     must elapse before soil again accumulates sufficiently to grow the more advanced 
     
     grasses and shrubs, and later still spruce trees. One such cycle is well authenticated. 
     
     About the year 1840 a big fire began in the woods in the northern border of Lot 12, 
     
    
   
   
    
     Caused by fires. 
     
    
   
   
    
     A fire about 
     
    
   
   
    
     7840' between the settlements now known as Conway on the north and Ellerslie on the 
     
     south. So great was the conflagration that some settlers’ houses were in imminent 
     
     danger and it was only through great exertions that the dwellings and barns were 
     
    

    
     Succession saved. The fire swept some hundreds of acres of spruce woodland almost bare. In 
     
    

    
     after fire. 1870 this district was almost covered with blueberry bushes, besides other 
     
    
   
   
    
     vegetation. Yet here and there were the remains of the burned tree trunks, but well 
     
     washed with the spring and autumn rains, until the charred and consequently black 
     
     appearance had completely given way to the grey, of weathered—beaten wood. Since 
     
     then the seeds of the spruce and fir—called var in the province—have gradually 
     
     spread from the surrounding woods, until—with an ever increasing accumulation of 
     
     soil, almost the whole of this part or as much of it as has not been settled upon and 
     
     become farm land—is now covered with spruce and fir trees from ten to twenty feet 
     
    
   
   
    
     in height 
     
     lo. 79] 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     231