bushels, and in the year following the banner harvest of 1741 this total was nearly doubled.  The price which the habitant got for wheat at Quebec ranged normally from two to four livres per hundredweight (about thirty to sixty cents per bushel) depending upon the harvests in the colony and the safety with which wheat could be shipped to France, which, again, hinged upon the fact whether France and England were at peace or at war.  Indian corn was not exported to any large extent, but many cargoes of dried peas were sent abroad, and occasionally there were small shipments of oats and beans.

There was also a considerable production of hemp, flax, and tobacco, but not for export in any large quantity.  The tobacco grown in the colony was coarse and ill-flavored.  It was smoked by both the habitant and the Indian because it was cheap; but Brazilian tobacco was greatly preferred by those who could afford to buy it, and large quantities of this were brought in.  The French Government frowned upon tobacco-growing in New France, believing, as Colbert wrote to Talon in 1672, that any such policy would be prejudicial to the interests of the French colonies in the tropical zones which were much better adapted to this branch of cultivation.

Cattle raising made substantial progress, and the King urged the Sovereign Council to prohibit the slaughter of cattle so that the herds might keep on growing; but the stock was not of a high standard, but undersized, of mongrel breed, and poorly cared for.  Sheep raising, despite the brisk demand for wool, made slow headway.  Most of the wool needed in the colony had to be brought from France, and the demand was great because so much woolen clothing was required for winter use.  The keeping of poultry was, of course, another branch of husbandry.  The habitants were fond of horses; even the poorest managed to keep two or three, which was a wasteful policy as there was no work for the horses to do during nearly half the year.  Fodder, however, was abundant and cost nothing, as each habitant obtained from the flats along the river all that he could cut and carry away.  This marsh hay was not of superior quality, but it at least served to carry the horses and stock through the winter.

The methods of agriculture were beyond question slovenly and crude.  Catalogne, the engineer whom the authorities commissioned to make an agricultural census of the colony, ventured the opinion that, if the fields of France were cultivated as the farms of Canada were, three-quarters of the French people would starve.  Rotation of crops was practically unknown, and fertilization of the land was rare, although the habitant frequently burned the stubble before putting the plough to his fields.  From time to time a part of each farm was allowed to lie fallow, but such fallow fields were left unploughed and soon grew so rank with weeds that the soil really got no rest at all.  All the ploughing was done in the spring, and it was not