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Updated: June 2, 2025
Herr Kalm was presently enticed away by a bevy of young ladies, Hortense de Beauharnais leading them, to get the learned professor's opinion on some rare specimens of botany growing in the park. Nothing loath for he was good-natured as he was clever, and a great enthusiast withal in the study of plants he allowed the merry, talkative girls to lead him where they would.
The traveller who passed along the great river from Quebec to Montreal in the early autumn might see, as Peter Kalm in his Travels tells us he saw, field upon field of waving grain extending from the shores inward as far as the eye could reach, broken only here and there by tracts of meadow and woodland. The outposts of an empire at least had been established.
Various chroniclers have left us pen portraitures of the habitant as they saw him in the olden days. Charlevoix, La Hontan, Hocquart, and Peter Kalm, men of widely different tastes and aptitudes, all bear testimony to his vigor, stamina, and native-born vivacity. He was courteous and polite always, yet there was no flavor of servility in this most benign trait of character.
And material prosperity had kept pace with the increase in population; so that there was some truth, even if some exaggeration, in the statement of Peter Kalm that "the English colonies in this part of the world have increased so much in their numbers of inhabitants, and in their riches, that they almost vie with Old England." Of this rapid growth the colonists were well aware.
"The Perennial Hemp grows to the height of from four to six feet. "The root inclines horizontally with numerous fleshy fibres at the extremity. "The buds many, and resembling the buds of the Lily of the Valley. "It is the Urtica canadensis of Kalm, one of which was brought over and planted by the side of this plant, and we could not find any difference." LAPSANA communis.
Each one took a pipe from the stand and followed the Governor's example, except Peter Kalm, who, more philosophically, carried his pipe with him a huge meerschaum, clouded like a sunset on the Baltic.
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.
"Dear Kalm," said the Governor, catching the fervor of his friend, as he rested his hand affectionately on his shoulder, "you are as true a lover of nature as when we sat together at the feet of Linnaeus, our glorious young master, and heard him open up for us the arcana of God's works; and we used to feel like him, too, when he thanked God for permitting him to look into his treasure-house and see the precious things of creation which he had made."
They had been fellow-students, both at Upsal and at Paris, and loved each other with a cordiality that, like good wine, grew richer and more generous with age. Herr Kalm, stretching out his arms as if to embrace the lovely landscape and clasp it to his bosom, exclaimed with fresh enthusiasm, "See Quebec, and live forever!"
On Sunday, too, and she a Sunday child! Call her quickly, Resa." The little child lifted up her voice, "Hyld " "Not her name utter not her name!" And the widow Kalm went on muttering to herself, "Perhaps the Hyldemoer will not have heard. Alas the day! when my child was born under an elder-tree, and I, poor desolate mother! was terrified into giving my babe that name.
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