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To seventy robust Canadians, commanded by d'Iberville, de Sainte-Hélène and de Maricourt, all sons of Charles Le Moyne, the governor had added thirty good soldiers under the orders of MM. de Troyes, Duchesnil and Catalogne, to take part in an expedition for the capture of Hudson Bay from the English.
With the two maps Catalogne presented a long report on the ownership, resources, and general progress of the seigneuries.
Catalogne, the engineer whom the authorities commissioned to make an agricultural census of the colony, ventured the opinion that, if the fields of France were cultivated as the farms of Canada were, three-quarters of the French people would starve.
Its low ceiling of heavy beams, its spotlessly sanded floor, carpeted with striped catalogne, its pine table, and home-made chairs of elm, were common sights in the country.
A brewery, built of stone, was in full operation. The land was fertile and produced abundant harvests. When Catalogne visited Longueuil in 1712 he noted that the habitants were living in comfortable circumstances, by reason of the large expenditures which the seigneur had made to improve the land and the means of communication.
Catalogne spent two years in his survey, during which time he visited practically all the colonial estates.
Catalogne remarks in his valuable report that if the fields of France were cultivated like the farms of Canada three-fourths of the people would starve. Fertilization of the land was rare. All that was usually done in this direction was to burn the stubble in the spring before the land went under the plough. Rotation of crops was practically unknown.
The district of Three Rivers, extending on the north shore of the St Lawrence from Berthier-en-Haut to Grondines, and on the south from St Jean-Deschaillons east to Yamaska, was but sparsely populated when Catalogne prepared to report in 1712.
This, as Catalogne pointed out, was a gross extravagance, for there was no work for the horses to do during nearly half the year. The implements of agriculture were as crude as the methods. Most of them were made in the colony out of inferior materials and with poor workmanship.
As Catalogne phrased the situation in 1712, its lands were 'yielding moderate harvests of grain and vegetables. Fruit-trees had been brought to maturity in various parts of the seigneury and were bearing well. Much of the land was well wooded with oak and pine, a good deal of which had been already, in 1712, cut down and marketed at Quebec.
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