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.