Nevertheless, Hebert was able by unremitting industry to get the entire twelve arpents into cultivable shape within four or five years. With his labours he mingled intelligence. Part of the land was sown with maize, part sown with peas, beans, and other vegetables, a part set off as an orchard, and part reserved as pasture. The land was fertile and produced abundantly. A few head of cattle were easily provided for in all seasons by the wild hay which grew in plenty on the flats by the river. Here was an indication of what the colony could hope to do if all its settlers were men of Hebert's persistence and stability. But the other prominent men of the little settlement, although they may have turned their hands to gardening in a desultory way, let him remain, for the time being, the only real colonist in the land. On his farm, moreover, a house had been built during these same years with the aid of two artisans, but chiefly by the labour of the owner himself. It was a stone house, about twenty feet by forty in size, a one-story affair, unpretentious and unadorned, but regarded as one of the most comfortable abodes in the colony. The attractions of this home, and especially the hospitality of Madame Hebert and her daughters, are more than once alluded to in the meagre annals of the settlement. It was the first dwelling to be erected on the plateau above the village; it passed to Hebert's daughter, and was long known in local history as the house of the widow Couillard. Its exact situation was near the gate of the garden which now encircles the seminary, and the remains of its foundation walls were found there in 1866 by some workmen in the course of their excavations. That strivings so worthy should have in the end won due recognition from official circles is not surprising. The only wonder is that this recognition was so long delayed. An explanation can be found, however, in the fact that the trading company which controlled the destinies of the colony during its precarious infancy was not a bit interested in the agricultural progress of New France. It had but two aims--in the first place to get profits from the fur trade, and in the second place to make sure that no interlopers got any share in this lucrative business. Its officers placed little value upon such work as Hebert was doing. But in 1623 the authorities were moved to accord him the honour of rank as a seigneur, and the first title-deed conveying a grant of land en seigneurie was issued to him on February 4 of that year. The deed bore the signature of the Duc de Montmorenci, titular viceroy of New France. Three years later a further deed, confirming Hebert's rights and title, and conveying to him an additional tract of land on the St Charles river, was issued to him by the succeeding viceroy, Henri de Levy, Duc de Ventadour.