110 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The typical Percherons knew the way to clear the forest, because 

 tlieir country was covered (especially in those days) with trees. They 

 produced all sorts of grain, poultry, cattle, pigs, etc., and so they did in 

 Canada from the outset. Every woman had a trade of her own — the 

 men also. Take Beauport, near Quebec, as an example : the first ten or 

 twelve agricultural families located there were composed of a stonemason, 

 a carpenter, a tiler, slater or thatcher, a blacksmith (often called armour- 

 er), a miller, a shoemaker, a ropemaker, a leather-dresser, and two or 

 three weavers. Before the clothes brought from France were worn out 

 the ' Canadian ' manufacture supplied the little colony with fresh wool- 

 len stuff of various fabrics from serge and camlet to much thicker 

 cloths, as well as linen made of their culture of flax. It soon became a 

 saying that the 'habitant' (so named by contrast with the roving fur- 

 trader) needs no help from France, except in the line of iron and steel 

 tools and firelocks. From head to feet they^ could provide for them- 

 selves; their table was well supplied, their houses comfortable; in fact 

 they lived in luxury. The culinary art had many adepts amongst 

 them, and this has been transmitted through generations. 



The hygienic aspect of the situation must have been well under- 

 stood by those early settlers, because not even the children were affected 

 by the influence of the new climate and habits of life. Scorbutic dis- 

 eases disappeared from 1632 — that is to sa}'^, never prevailed amongst 

 actual settlers or habitants, but continued to follow the men sent to the 

 advanced posts for a winter or two in the pursuit of the fur trade. 



Boots and shoes brought from France soon became known as hottes 

 et souliers françois, to be used indoors on special occasions only. Bottes 

 et souliers sauvages served all other purposes at every season. The long 

 overcoat, or capot, made of coarse AvooUen cloth with a nap on one side 

 a stuff called hure in French, is a remarkable instance of their ingen- 

 uity. This coat has a hood attached to the collar and dropping behind: 

 it is buttoned up and down, double-breast, and made tight around the 

 body by a wide and long Avoollen sash of bright colours, altogether an 

 immense improvement over the ' caban ' or dreadnought-coat of the 

 mariners, well known in England and France. 



Their mode of colonisation also differed from that which might 

 have been expected, considering that in France the country people are 

 centralised in villages somewhat away from the fields they cultivate. 

 The first attempt made in Canada to lay out farms (1632) consisted in 

 having them in a row facing the river and distant from one another 

 about four arpents. Each lot of land measured forty arpents deep, 

 making one hundred and sixty square arpents for a farm. This system 

 was adopted by the whole of the colony as it gradually got settled — not- 



