[33] (p. [181]).—Regarding Cotton, (Coton) see vol. [ii]., note [68].
[34] (p. [183]).—For sketch of Massé, see vol. [i]., note [39].
[35] (p. [191]).—Le Clercq, apparently without good reason, mentions this letter as "falsely attributed to Lalemant."—See Rochemonteix's Jésuites, vol. i., p. 155, note.
[36] (p. [191]).—A younger brother of Charles Lalemant; a sketch of his life will be given in a later volume.
[37] (p. [193]).—Meslin (or maslin; derived from Latin miscere): mixed grain, especially a mixture of rye and wheat.
[38] (p. [195]).—Champlain wished to make Quebec an agricultural colony, but his efforts were thwarted by the narrow and selfish policy of the mercantile companies, who cared only to develop the fur trade. They gave the colonists no means for cultivating the soil, and, according to Champlain, "had not themselves cleared an arpent and a half of land in the 22 years during which they were, according to his Majesty's intention, to have peopled and cultivated the colony of Quebec." Sagard says (Canada, p. 168) that the space cleared was not even one arpent. The merchants even oppressed Hébert (vol. [ii]., note [80]),—"the only colonist who supported his family from the produce of his land, making many illegal claims upon him for his yearly harvests, and compelling him to sell only to the company, and that at a specified rate."—Champlain's Voyages (1632), part 2, pp. 144, 183, 184. Cf. Mercure François, vol. xiv. (1628), p. 234. The Récollet missionaries were cultivators, and, desirous of leading the savages from a nomadic to a sedentary life, even induced a few of the latter to imitate their example. The Jesuits also paid much attention to agriculture.—See Faillon's Col. Fr., vol. i., pp. 161-164; Rochemonteix's Jésuites, vol. i., pp. 154-157; and Sulte's Can.-Français, vol. ii., p. 18.
Champlain says (Laverdière's ed., pp. 1144, 1155) that the plow was first used in Canada, April 27, 1628; this was doubtless by Couillard, Hébert's son-in-law.
Arpent: a word of Celtic derivation, according to Columelle and Littré; it occurs as early as the eleventh century (e.g., Chanson de Roland). An old French land measure, containing 100 square perches, but varying in different provinces. The linear arpent of Paris was 180 French feet (variously computed at from 191.83 to 192.3 English feet), the common arpent 200, and the standard arpent 220. The first of these was the one used in New France, under the Coutume de Paris, and it still remains the legal measure in all the seigniories of Quebec. The Quebec Department of Crown Lands, which we adopt as preferable authority, translates the arpent into 191.85 English feet.
Bourdon's map of the settlements on the St. Lawrence, from Quebec to Cape Tourmente (1641; reproduced at end of Tanguay's Dict. Généal., vol. i.), indicates that each lot had seven arpents of river frontage, and a depth of a French league or more (84 arpents to the league). Giffard's concession at Beauport (the first of the seigniories) was 1½ leagues along the river, and the same in depth.—Sulte's Can.-Français, vol. ii., pp. 47-48. Duralde's survey of the Illinois country (1770) assigned to each inhabitant a lot, measuring from one to four arpents wide, and forty arpents deep.—See H. W. Williams's chapter on "St. Louis Land Titles," in Scharf's History of St. Louis (Phila., 1883), vol. i., pp. 316-329. Williams, whom Scharf indorses as an authority, computes the arpent at 192 feet 6 inches, English measure.
The assignment of lands throughout New France in long, narrow strips, was obviously made to secure for each settler a frontage on the river, then the main highway; and to bring the inhabitants of each settlement into close neighborhood, for social and defensive purposes. The same reasons, of course, governed the allotment of lands in Roger Williams's colony at Providence (1640),—an interesting similarity to French Canadian custom. The "home-lots" at Providence had an (estimated) river frontage of 105 to 120 English feet, all running up to a common highway along the crest of the back-lying ridge; each lot contained from 4½ to 5½ acres. For description and plats, see Charles W. Hopkins's Home Lots of the Early Settlers of Providence Plantations (Providence, 1886).