Though there had been no rain for some days past, yet the moisture in the air was so great, that as I spread some papers on the ground this afternoon, in a shady place, intending to put the seeds I collected into them, they were so wet in a few minutes time, as to be rendered quite useless. The whole sky was very clear and bright, and the heat as intolerable as in the middle of July.
One half of the corn-fields are left fallow alternately. The fallow grounds are never ploughed in summer; so the cattle can feed upon the weeds that grow on them. All the corn made use of here is summer corn, as I have before observed. Some plough the fallow grounds late in autumn; others defer that business till spring; but the first way is said to give a much better crop. Wheat, barley, rye, and oats are harrowed, but pease are ploughed under ground. They sow commonly about the 15th of April, and begin with the pease. Among the many kinds of pease which are to be got here, they prefer the green ones to all [[290]]others for sowing. They require a high, dry, poor ground, mixed with coarse sand. The harvest time commences about the end, and sometimes in the middle of August. Wheat returns generally fifteen, and sometimes twenty fold; oats from fifteen to thirty fold. The crop of pease is sometimes forty fold, but at other times only ten fold; for they are very different. The plough and harrow are the only instruments of husbandry they have, and those none of the best sort neither. The manure is carried upon the fallow grounds in spring. The soil consists of a grey stony earth, mixed with clay and sand. They sow no more barley than is necessary for the cattle; for they make no malt here. They sow a good deal of oats, but merely for the horses and other cattle. Nobody knows here how to make use of the leaves of deciduous trees as a food for the cattle, though the forests are furnished with no other than trees of that kind, and though the people are commonly forced to feed their cattle at home during five months.
I have already repeatedly mentioned, that almost all the wheat which is sown in Canada is summer wheat, that is such as is sown in spring. Near Quebec it sometimes happens, when the summer is less warm, or [[291]]the spring later than common, that a great part of the wheat does not ripen perfectly before the cold commences. I have been assured that some people, who live on the Isle de Jesus, sow wheat in autumn, which is better, finer, and gives a more plentiful crop, than the summer wheat; but it does not ripen above a week before the other wheat.
September the 25th. In several places hereabouts, they enclose the fields with a stone fence, instead of wooden pales. The plenty of stones which are to be got here, render the labour very trifling.
Here are abundance of beech trees in the woods, and they now had ripe seeds. The people in Canada collect them in autumn, dry them, and keep them till winter, when they eat them, instead of walnuts and hazel nuts; and I am told they taste very well.
There is a salt spring, as the priest of this place informed me, seven French miles from hence, near the river d’Assomption; of which during the war, they have made a fine white salt. The water is said to be very briny.
Some kinds of fruit-trees succeed very well near Montreal, and I had here an opportunity of seeing some very fine pears and apples of various sorts. Near Quebec the [[292]]pear-trees will not succeed, because the winter is too severe for them; and sometimes they are killed by the frost in the neighbourhood of Montreal. Plum-trees of several sorts were first brought over from France, succeed very well, and withstand the rigours of winter. Three varieties of America walnut-trees grow in the woods; but the walnut-trees brought over from France die almost every year down to the very root, bringing forth new shoots in spring. Peach-trees cannot well agree with this climate; a few bear the cold, but, for greater safety, they are obliged to put straw round them. Chesnut-trees, mulberry-trees, and the like, have never yet been planted in Canada.
The whole cultivated part of Canada has been given away by the king to the clergy, and some noblemen; but all the uncultivated parts belong to him, as likewise the place on which Quebec and Trois Rivieres are built. The ground on which the town of Montreal is built, together with the whole isle of that name, belongs to the priests of the order of St. Sulpicius who live at Montreal. They have given the land in tenure to farmers and others who were willing to settle on it, in so much that they have more upon their hands at [[293]]present. The first settlers paid a trifling rent for their land; for frequently the whole lease for a piece of ground, three arpens broad and thirty long, consists in a couple of chicken; and some pay twenty, thirty, or forty sols for a piece of land of the same size. But those who came later, must pay near two ecus (crowns) for such a piece of land, and thus the land-rent is very unequal throughout the country. The revenues of the bishop of Canada do not arise from any landed property. The churches are built at the expence of the congregations. The inhabitants of Canada do not yet pay any taxes to the king; and he has no other revenues from it, than those which arise from the custom-house.
The priests of Montreal have a mill here, where they take the fourth part of all that is ground. However the miller receives a third part of this share. In other places he gets the half of it. The priests sometimes lease the mill for a certain sum. Besides them nobody is allowed to erect a mill on the isle of Montreal, they having reserved that right to themselves. In the agreement drawn up between the priests and the inhabitants of the isle, the latter are obliged to get all their corn ground in the mills of the former. [[294]]
They boil a good deal of sugar in Canada of the juice running out of the incisions in the sugar-maple, the red maple, and the sugar-birch; but that of the first tree is most commonly made use of. The way of preparing it has been more minutely described by me, in the Memoirs of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences[119].