ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 555 



Quebec. Forest rangers are on the look out, and frequently confiscate the 

 pelts and destroy the traps of the Indian hunters. 



Farming. — The Huron villagers do not seek any appreciable part of 

 their income from agriculture, nor even from those more simple opportuni- 

 ties afforded by country life. Only three or four families keep a cow 

 each, and some hens ; only a few have a small kitchen garden ; the others 

 purchase from French Canadian farmers the very milk, eggs, and vege- 

 tables they consume. Only one of the villagers keeps horses. 



Two miles to the west of Lorette village there is a reserve 1,600 

 arpents (1,350 acres) in area, on which six or seven Huron families are 

 supposed to be farming. Although they may occasionally turn out a few 

 pairs of snowshoes, they do not resort to industries in at all the same 

 measure as do the Lorette villagers. At the same time they can hardly 

 be considered farmers. Much the greater part of the reserve is still bush. 

 Each farm comprises a few arpents (at most ten or twelve) of cleared 

 land, on which the only growth to be observed, apart from a small 

 garden and potato patch, is a miserable field of very thin hay overrun by 

 the ox-eye daisy. In rare instances a crop of a few bushels of oats may 

 be added. When any farm animals are kept, the stock comprises one 

 cow (exceptionally two), one horse (if any), one or two porkers, and about 

 as many hens. Attracted to one of these homesteads by the rather better 

 appearance of the house and the barn compared with the hovels on most 

 of the other clearings, we were disappointed to find that the husbandry 

 there carried on was of the same general undeveloped type. We did not 

 see any stock, but were met by the fierce barking of three or four dogs 

 coming out in succession from under the doorsteps. ' They are very good 

 hunting dogs,' the people told us by way of apology. 



For the Hurons of the reserve a more congenial means of living than 

 agriculture is hunting. We had an hour's chat with Thomas Tsioui, a 

 typical old Huron. Three of his sons still living are hunters as much as 

 conditions permit ; he himself spent the greater part of his early life in 

 the woods. At one time he was a noted long-distance runner at the 

 Quebec and Montreal fairs. 



In 1898, the revenue derived from farming by the whole Huron com- 

 munity was estimated at 870 dollars.^ The revenue obtained from their 

 farms and from the chase are insufticient for the support of these Hurons 

 of the reserve, and they would be in utter misery were it not for some 

 additional revenue from various sources : drawing firewood from the 

 reserve to the Lorette villagers, day labour performed on the railway and 

 elsewhere in the vicinity, and oftentimes the very material help provided 

 by their women folk. 



With all that, a large proportion of the Lorette Indians have been 

 forced to seek elsewhere their means of livelihood. The Huron com- 

 munity reckons 142 absentees against a resident population of 300. That 

 is to say about one-third of the total number has left for other parts of 

 Canada or for the United States. Now and then some of these effect 

 their return to their old abode, while others start out in their turn. 



The means of living of our modern Hurons as just described do not at 



' That same year the revenue derived from the various manufacturiDg industries 

 amounted to 27,.500 dollars, and wages earned to 9,000 dollars, giving for the Hurons 

 of Lorette a total income from all sources of 38,000 dollars. The following year 

 (1899) the returns were as follows : Manufacturing industries, 18,000 dollars ; wages, 

 5,000 dollars ; hunting and fishing, 1,050 dollars ; farming, 1,200 dollars. 



