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. Even in cutting down the timber there were abuses at Montreal. To provide against the carelessness of riverside cultivators, as all were at this time, in dumping their lumber into the river, Talon issued the following order in October, 1670: "Whereas it has been pointed out to us that the inhabitants of Montreal between Ste. Marie and La Petite Chine (Lachine) have cut their timber so that, having fallen into the river, it prevents navigation and blocks communication, we order them to cut their wood into logs and to place them on the stream in such a way that they may be carried away with the ice when it melts this year." These logs could then be sold at Quebec in return for the necessities of life.