34 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
all green in Winter with the Juniper Bushes and red in Suninier with 
the large Strawberries and other wild Fruits whieh it bears. — It hath 
abundance of wild or Beach Pease, which fatten the Cattle very well. 
* * * There is neither Trees (but many Bushes) nor Stones. 
— The Grass is tall, thick and hath a very sweet taste and nourish- 
ing Property; there is some English Grass, but the other is more pro- 
fitable, and there is enough to feed some thousand Heads of Cattle. " 
All of the native plants mentioned by Le Mercier, juniper bushes, 
strawberries (though they hardly color the ground red), and beach 
pease, grow there to-day. 
With reference to the quotation from de Laet given above, it will 
be noticed that Le Mercier says, "There is neither Trees (but many 
Bushes) nor Stones" and that John Rose reported "no wood upon 
it" in 1633, so by the year 1753 any trees which had formerly existed 
on Sable Island bad, in all probability disappeared. 
Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres made a survey ot Sable Island 
in 1766 and 1767 in compliance with orders from the British Admir- 
alty. In his page and a half of "Remarks on the Isle of Sable, "^ we 
find, "The whole island is composed of fine white sand, much coarser 
than any of the soundings about it, and intermixed with small trans- 
parent stones. Its face is very broken, and hove up in little hills, 
knobs and cliffs, wildly heaped together, within which are hollows and 
ponds of fresh water, the skirts of w'hich abound with cranberries the 
whole year, and with blueberries &c. in their season, as also with 
ducks, snipes, and other birds. This sandy island affords a great 
plenty of beach grass, wild pease, and other herbages, for the support 
of the horses, cows, hogs, &c. which are running wild upon it. It 
grows no trees but abundance of wreck and drift wood may be picked 
up along shore for fuel." 
Seth Coleman reported- to Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Went- 
worth on conditions at Sable Island as he found them June 24th, 
1801, saying, "The soil in general is nearly the same excepting upon 
the upland, which is principally of a nature to produce Beach Grass 
intermixed with the wild Pea, and round the Edge of the Pond, there 
is a finer kind of grass, but much of the same quality, and I discover- 
ed some small spots of English Grass, and on the boarders of the Pond 
Vegetables might be raised, if enclosed for Gardens, * * * and 
1 Des Barres, Joseph Frederick Wallet : The Isle of Sable, Survey'd in 1766 
and 1767. Atlantic Neptune, i. 68 (1777). 
2Rept. on Canadian Archives, 91 (1895). 
