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BOTANICAL EVALUATION OF THE GOAT ISLAND COMPLEX, NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK |
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THE FOREST CONDITION IN 1885 Previous to 1850, Louis Agassiz and a group of students and scholars from Harvard University and other academic institutions visited Niagara Falls on their way to Lake Superior. One of his students kept a diary and reported some of their experiences in western New York. On June 17, these scholarly travelers departed Buffalo for Niagara. Along the way they witnessed "a continuation of the ... noble forest of "first growth," but often broken by clearings." Most of the trees observed along the way were elms. Prof. Agassiz noted the increased richness of the forest in western New York, with its limestone and marl deposits, versus eastern New York, where the flora was comparatively depauperate due to the poor quality of granitic substrates. He mentioned the great variety to be found in the forest trees and shrubs of New York State, compared to Europe, which calls to mind J. D. Hooker's description of the great Eastern Deciduous Forest of which Goat Island was a special example (see Hooker section). This variety appears to be accounted for to some extent by the greater diversity of species in the American continent compared with that of Europe, such as in the genus Rhus or Sumach, and Quercus or Oak, and Vitis or grape ("mostly useless for the manufacture of wine" - an opinion also noted by Hooker in his journal). Central Europe, for example, possessed two species of Oak, whereas in the whole United States there were over forty - in Massachusetts there were eleven. The composition of American forest communities was also more diverse than Agassiz noted in Europe, where species combinations were more uniform. Agassiz noted that beech was abundant in the vicinity of Niagara. Agassiz remarked that "here at Niagara, almost exclusively elm, beech, hickory, ash, and arbor-vitae" were to be seen - perhaps Sugar Maple so abundant as to be not worth mentioning (Agassiz, 1850). One of the members of Agassiz's retinue wrote that they "blessed once more the good sense that has kept this place undisturbed." The place was Goat Island. In 1899 (16 Ann Rep Comm, 1900), Porter quoted an unknown source: "It is interesting to consider that many of the trees now standing on Goat Island looked down on the first recorded visit of a white man to the Falls, and have remained the only living witnesses of those important scenes in the drama of European conquest in America ... the tribes and armies ... are gone, but the trees ... still remain ...." "While some lands and forests near here may not have been cultivated, the western end of Goat Island is an absolutely unique piece of virgin forest. Most of the time it has been, in general terms, inaccessible to man; and since accessible by bridges, no cutting of the trees, no clearing of the land nor cultivation thereof, no pasturing of cattle, in fact no disturbance of the soil, has been permitted" (Porter, in part quoting Gardner (1880), 16 Ann Rep Comm, 1900). "Goat Island and the adjacent islands were covered with an original bit of virgin forest, which, fortunately, has been conscientiously preserved in its primeval state" (Report of the Treasurer and Secretary, 17 Ann Rep Comm, 1901). Gardner, in the report to the Legislature attesting to conditions on property that would become the Niagara Reservation, stated that "on all of these [islands], except Bath Island, the hand of man has spared the primeval forest. Picturesque clusters of evergreens, rising out of dashing waters, the rich overhanging foliage of the high banks of Goat Island and deep seclusion of its woods, give to this spot a charm not shared by any other about Niagara" (Gardner, 1880). |