Pioneer settlers see
landscapes in terms of commodities. This meant something else
as well: it treated members of an ecosystem as isolated and
extractable units. Explorers describing a new countryside with an
eye to its mercantile possibilities all too easily fell into this
way of looking at things, so that their descriptions often
degenerated into little more than lists.
Martin Pring's
account of the trees of Martha's Vineyard illustrates this
tendency:
As for Trees the Country yeeldeth Sassafras a
plant of sove-reigne vertue for the French Poxe, and as some of
late have learnedly written good against the Plague and many other
Maladies; Vines, Cedars, Okes, Ashes, Beeches, Birch trees, Cherie
trees bearing fruit whereof wee did eate, Hasels, Wichhasels, the
best wood of all other to make Sope-ashes withall, walnut-trees,
Maples, holy to make Bird lime with, and a kinde of tree bearing a
fruit like a small red Peare-plum.
A Voyage Set Out from the Citie of Bristoll,
1603
