The cost of these horses and sheep was great. Each mare cost 120 livres, each stallion, 200, the sheep, about 6 livres apiece. In 1665 the transportation and feed of the consignment cost 11,200 livres. By November, 1671, Talon wrote that there were enough horses. Cows and pigs had already become as familiar as in France. It will be remembered that in 1647 a horse was sent for M. Montmagny, the governor general. In these early days the birch bark canoe was more useful than the horse, for the rivers were then the only highways.
Later on Montrealers became so interested in horse rearing that, "ignorant of their true interests," they had to be forbidden by Intendant Raudot in 1709 to possess more than two horses or mares, and one foal, for fear of neglecting the rearing of horned cattle.
But it must not be supposed that these seigneuries and small holdings grew up like mushrooms. The farmer's initiation for the first two or three years was a rough one. It was only by very patient labour, and, little by little, that the lands were cleared, tilled, and the modest house put up, and an assured means of easy livelihood secured. The cultivators had to follow the same strenuous methods that those, opening their concessions in the Northwest, employ today.
At Montreal, while there was still fear of the Iroquois, we have seen how difficult it was to work the fields, and how, for mutual protection, they had temporarily to till small portions of the seigneur's domain till they could safely go farther afield. But in 1664, when it was known that the king's troops were coming, many obtained new concessions on Côte St. Louis, some towards the mountain, some at the foot of the current near the fortified farm of Ste. Marie. In 1665 many resolved to go below the foot of the current and beyond the River St. Peter, for the lands on this side of the river, and especially those at Point St. Charles, had already been conceded, and although abandoned during the wars, were still claimed. East and west, the colonists now went afield to Côte St. Martin, Côte St. François (later called Longue Pointe), Côte St. Anne, Côte St. Jean (later called Pointe aux Trembles). At the latter place in 1669, land was given to Jean Oury with the intention of a village church and mill, being erected thereon.
These côtes were restricted to their river neighbourhood to guard the settlements from Iroquois descents by the stream.
This same plan was adopted along the whole length of the St. Lawrence. "It is pleasant to see at present," says the "Relation" of 1668, "nearly all the banks of our River St. Lawrence peopled with new colonies, with new villages rising, which facilitate navigation and render the journey, more agreeable by the sight of the houses, and more convenient by the frequent resting places offered."
All were not as diligent as could be desired in putting up within the year stipulated hearth and home (feu et lieu), or in clearing their concessions. Consequently when Talon was in Montreal in May, 1670, in consequence of just complaints he ordered that in future no copyholder should be granted land unless, in addition to building his homestead, he should put two arpents under cultivation yearly under penalty of forfeiting his grant, unless he could prove illness or other strong cause restraining him. Moreover, in the new contract, it was to be stipulated that no one could claim title to his land until he had put up his buildings and had placed two arpents in cultivation, with a pickaxe, for up to this, as seen by the concessions preserved in the archives up to 1657, a man had been thought to have tilled his ground if he had felled the trees and had uprooted all the roots which were a foot in diameter or upwards, and had used the others in such a way that a cart could pass along without obstacle.
Yet there were still difficulties, for on January 12, 1675, the Seigneurs put up the following public notice at the parish church, the fort, and the different mills:
"We have learned from many complaints, that several of our tenants take no trouble, not only to establish their homes on their lands and to put them to use, but even neglect to fell the timber, or to keep in order the little space they have cleared on taking possession. This negligence retards the advancement of the colony and prevents many strangers coming to take up land in this island and to dwell here. It causes a dearth of wheat and grain from which the people have suffered during the past two years. Finally it entirely ruins the adjoining lands already tilled, both because of the continued shadows which the standing woods cast on them, and because the squirrels and other small animals left on these uncultivated lands leave them to eat and destroy the greater part of the grain to the ruin of other lands."
To remedy this the seigneurs gave their tenants four months to put their lands in order and to cut down all standing timber on pain of forfeiture to the seigneurial domain.