Clark, A. H. (1959) Three Centuries and the island. A Historical Geography of Settlement and 
     
     Agriculture in Prince Edward Island, Canada. University of Toronto. 287 pp. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Andrew Hill Clark in his classic study of the historical geography of Prince Edward Island presented in his text a 
     
     succinct general description of the forests of the island based on both his own kno wledge of the forests and the 
     
     limited literature available in 1959. As part of his description he also included a map derived from the 7929 PhD 
     
     dissertation of F. A. Sti/genbauer, a student at the University of Michigan, which Clark presents as a picture of the 
     
    
   
   
    
     presumed forest cover before European settlement. In using the map Clark simplified the names of Stilgenbauer’s 
     
     forest ’belts’, and also used the term ’association’ instead of belt, presumably in the sense of the influential 
     
     American ecologist, F. E. Clements, who from the 79203 had developed and disseminated his concept of 
     
     vegetation classification. The ’association ’ la subdivision of the ’formation ’l, is a climax plant community 
     
     characterized by particular plant species. Two of the six mapped associations are named by Clark after particular 
     
     species (cedar and larch) but this does not mean that they were dominant, since associations are often named after 
     
     characteristic species rather than dominants. Apart from what is contained in his map, Clark made no further effort 
     
     to characterize the associations nor did he provide a list of tree species for any of them. 
     
    
   
   
    
     REFERENCE: Weaver, J. E. & Clements, F. E. (1929) Plant Ecology. New York. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Vegetation 
     
     Theme The vegetation cover of the seventeenth century cannot, of course, be 
     
     settlement fore-“- reconstructed from the spotty and scanty accounts of Cartier, Champlain and 
     
    
   
   
    
     Denys, but later observations and surveys, together with contemporary accounts 
     
     of what are now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, do allow us to describe it with 
     
     some confidence. Apart from the bogs, tidal marshes and sand dunes (in all a 
     
    
   
   
    
     Deciduous broad- small part of the total area) the surface supported a dense blanket of broadleafed 
     
    
   
   
    
     leaved foms, deciduous trees characteristic of the northeastern hardwood forest (especially 
     
    

    
     American beech, sugar maple, yellow birch and occasionally red oak) in which 
     
     A boreal were mixed, and sometimes locally predominant, representatives of the northern 
     
     coniferous coniferous forest (fir, spruce and tamarack—the American larch—in particular). 
     
     9/9m9m- Adding further variety were the coniferous trees associated with hardwood forest 
     
    
   
   
    
     (white pine, hemlock and white cedar) and the broadleafed ones which accompany 
     
     boreal forest (white, or "paper" birch and, possibly, poplar and willow). Before fire 
     
     and axe changed the forests, the island must have been a selectively 
     
     representative botanical garden for a large area on the northeastern part of the 
     
     continent. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Seen at a distance at which the island has usually been viewed, the terrain, rocks 
     
     Local variation. and climate appear remarkably uniform, but in our magnification of scale for this 
     
     study local differences can be discerned; enough to create such differences in 
     
     environment for plants that these forest elements varied in local density as one 
     
     ecological factor or another predominated. At one extreme were nearly pure 
     
     stands of maple or beech‘; at the other extreme were swampy patches of black 
     
     spruce or white cedar occupying substantial areas in the northeast and the 
     
     northwest. On the whole, as we analyse the earliest accounts, it appears that 
     
     extensive stands of individual species, or even of closely associated types, were 
     
     not common. Even the best beech—maple—yellow birch land was dotted with 
     
     spruce, fir, and occasional white pine. Each species had its own ecologic niche 
     
     in both place and time, the latter becoming apparent in later observations of the 
     
     succession after burning and cutting. It is well to remember that the 
     
     predominance of boreal types (spruce, fir, poplar and white birch) on island wood- 
     
     lots today 2 gives a very inadequate picture of the nature of the forest at the time 
     
     of the first European contacts (Figure [4]). (pp. 21-22] 
     
    
   
   
    
     The forests of 
     
     the past differ 
     
     from today. 
     
    
   
   
    
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