France received tracts as large as a Teutonic principality,
comprising a hundred square miles or more. Those of less
pretentious birth and limited means had to be content
with a few thousand arpents. In general, however, a
seigneury comprised at least a dozen square miles, almost
always with a frontage on the great river and rear limits
extending up into the foothills behind. The metes and
bounds of the granted lands were always set forth in the
letters-patent or title-deeds; but almost invariably with
utter vagueness and ambiguity. The territory was not
surveyed; each applicant, in filing his petition for a
seigneury, was asked to describe the tract he desired.
This description, usually inadequate and inaccurate, was
copied in the deed, and in due course hopeless confusion
resulted. It was well that most seigneurs had more land
than they could use; had it not been for this their
lawsuits over disputed boundaries would have been unending.

Liberal in the area of land granted to the new seigneurs,
the crown was also liberal in the conditions exacted.
The seigneur was asked for no initial money payment and
no annual land dues. When his seigneury changed owners
by sale or by inheritance other than in direct descent,
a mutation fine known as the quint was payable to the
public treasury. This, as its name implies, amounted to
one-fifth of the seigneury's value; but it rarely accrued,
and even when it did the generous monarch usually rebated
a part or all of it. Not a single sou was ever exacted
by the crown from the great majority of the seigneurs.
If agriculture made slow headway in New France it was