The grants were made on very generous terms, The soldiers and habitants, on taking possession of their land, received a substantial supply of food and the tools necessary for their work. They were to be paid for clearing and tilling the first two acres. In return each was bound by his deed to clear and prepare for cultivation during the three or four following years another two acres, which could afterwards be allotted to an incoming settler. Talon proposed also that they should be bound to military service. For each new-comer the king assumed the total expense of clearing two acres, erecting a house, preparing and sowing the ground, and providing flour until a crop was reaped--all on condition that the occupant should clear and cultivate two additional acres within three or four years, presumably for allotment to the next new-comer. Such were the broad lines of Talon's colonization policy. But to his mind it was not enough that he should make regulations and issue orders; he would set up a model farm himself and thus be an example in his own person. He bought land in the neighbourhood of the St Charles river and had the ground cleared at his own expense. He erected thereon a large house, a barn, and other buildings; and, in course of time, his fine property, comprising cultivated fields, meadows, and gardens, and well stocked with domestic animals, became a source of pride to him. Under Talon's wise direction and encouragement, the settlement of the country progressed rapidly. Now that they could work in safety, the colonists set themselves to the task of clearing new farms. In his Relation of 1668 Father Le Mercier wrote: 'It is fine to see new settlements on each side of the St Lawrence for a distance of eighty leagues... The fear of aggression no longer prevents our farmers from encroaching on the forest and harvesting all kinds of grain, which the soil here grows as well as in France.' In the district of Montreal there was great activity. It was during this period that the lands of Longue-Pointe, of Pointe-aux-Trembles, and of Lachine were first cultivated. At the same time, along the river Richelieu, in the vicinity of Forts Chambly and Sorel, officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salieres regiment were beginning to settle. 'These worthy gentlemen,' wrote Mother Marie de l'Incarnation, 'are at work, with the king's permission, establishing new French colonies. They live on their farm produce, for they have oxen, cows, and poultry.' A census taken in 1668 gave very satisfactory figures. A year before there had been 11,448 acres under cultivation. That year there were 15,649, and wheat production amounted to 130,979 bushels. Such results were encouraging. What a change in three years!