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Too often they gave large seigneurial grants to men who had neither the energy nor the funds to do what was expected of a seigneur in the new land. As for extent, the seigneuries varied greatly. Some were as large as a European dukedom; others contained only a few thousand arpents.
Directly under its control the Church had thus acquired in mortmain over two million arpents, while the lay landowners of the colony had secured only about three times as much. It held about one-quarter of all the granted lands, so that its position in Canada was relatively much stronger than in France. These lands came from the king or his colonial representatives by royal patent.
McGill in the vicinity of Montreal and whether the grounds are sufficiently extensive to have an adequate space for the formation of walks and gardens, in compliance with His Excellency's desire, we have to acquaint you that the grounds above mentioned contain about forty-six superficial arpents in a very healthy, moderately elevated, and pleasant situation, well watered, at a convenient distance from the city towards the mountain, and consequently appear to be sufficiently extensive and well calculated for every purpose of the contemplated establishment.
To each was assigned, moreover, sixty arpents of land beyond the limits of the village, with the perpetual rent of half a sou for each arpent. He also set apart a common, two hundred arpents in extent, for the use of the settlers, on condition of the payment by each of five sous a year.
If now and again the touch is too idyllic, it was still a prodigious gain to let the country know in a definite way that of the fifty million arpents of cultivable land in the realm, more than one quarter lay either unbroken or abandoned.
The cultivation of even a few arpents required a great deal of manual drudgery. On the other hand, the land of New France was fertile, and every one could have plenty of it for the asking. Kalm thought it quite as good as the average in the English colonies and far better than most arable land in his own Scandinavia.
A Governor's Secretary, a Judge's nephew, or some Clerk of Records was entitled to at least a thousand acres; the Governor's cook to 700 arpents. There was no stint, and no income or land tax.
The usual river frontage was from five to ten lineal arpents, and the depth ranged from ten to eighty arpents. It should be explained that the arpen de Paris, in terms of which colonial land measurements were invariably expressed, served both as a unit of length and as a unit of area. The lineal arpent was the equivalent of one hundred and ninety-two English feet.
Finally, there was the general poverty of the people. With a large family to support, for families of ten to fifteen children were not uncommon, it was hard for the settler to make both ends meet from the annual yield of a few arpents, however fertile.
Despite the fact that his holding was directly in the path of Indian attacks, Le Moyne made steady progress in clearing it; he built himself a house, and in 1654, at the age of twenty-eight, married Mademoiselle Catherine Primot, formerly of Rouen. The governor of Montreal, M. de Maisonneuve, showed his good will by a wedding gift of ninety additional arpents.
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