LOST ARTS OF PEIMIT1VE EACES. 157 



the smoked fish of which they laid in quantities for 

 winter use, they had large bins or vessels probably 

 made of wood or bark. Their corn was ground in 

 wooden mortars, as was usual with the Canadian and 

 neighbouring tribes (see Fig. 31), and baked in cakes 

 or made into various kinds of pottage. What a picture 

 we have here of agricultural plenty ! and this was, no 

 doubt, repeated in all the villages along the St. 

 Lawrence, and thence to the southward. 



Let us further note that of the plants cultivated as 

 field crops at Hochelaga, all belonged to species not 

 found wild north of the Gulf of Mexico, more than a 

 thousand miles to the southward. Yet these plants 

 had found their way from tribe to tribe to the banks 

 of the St. Lawrence, and were at the time of Cartier 

 cultivated as far north as the climate will allow them 

 to be cultivated now. These plants are indigenous 

 to America, and their properties and uses must have 

 been discovered or recognised by the people living 

 where they are native, and from them transmitted, 

 either by migrations or by commercial intercourse, to 

 the far north. Further, the culture of these plants in 

 Canada is attended with much greater difficulty than 

 it is at the south. Early varieties require to be 

 selected, and I have evidence that the variety of corn 

 cultivated at Hochelaga three hundred years ago was 

 similar to one of the early varieties cultivated still in 

 Canada. More careful tillage and manuring also are 

 needed, and precautions to avoid the effects of late 

 frosts in spring. Yet all this was known to the old 



