LOST AETS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 155 



implying a large amount of cultivated land. This 

 culture, too, mast have been of long standing; for 

 the removal of the " goodly great oaks " that originally 

 cumbered the ground was a work of time, especially 

 to people without iron implements, and who must 

 have destroyed each tree by laboriously girdling it, or 

 by scorching its bark with fire, and must have carried 

 on their culture amidst the tall, scathed trunks, until 

 these were broken down by the winds, aided by decay ; 

 and then they must have removed them by burning. 

 All these processes had long ago been complete, else 

 the French narrative could not have spoken of goodly 

 and large fields. But what was cultivated in these 

 fields ? Cartier mentions as the principal crop maize, 

 or Indian corn, and with this there were beans, dif- 

 ferent, he says, in appearance from those cultivated 

 in France, great cucumbers or melons by which he 

 probably means pumpkins, and probably tobacco. 

 He mentions also several kinds of fruits, but whether 

 wild or cultivated he does not say. The wild Cana- 

 dian plum, the choke-cherry, a hawthorn producing 

 edible fruit, and the wild grape, still abound in the 

 vicinity of the ancient Hochelaga, and may have been 

 cultivated or cared for and collected by the Hoche- 

 lagans. It was shortly after harvest when Cartier 

 visited the town, and they then had great store of all 

 the productions of their fields. They had on the tops 

 of their houses granaries, or possibly corn-cribs, for 

 preserving the Indian corn, probably to secure dry- 

 ness and prevent the attacks of vermin. For keeping 



