half-century of the French regime a good many settlers
were provided for in that region.

For a time the immigrants found little or no difficulty
in obtaining farms on easy terms. Seigneurs were glad
to give them land without any initial payment and frequently
promised exemption from the usual seigneurial dues for
the first few years. In any case these dues and services,
which will be explained more fully later on, were not
burdensome. Any settler of reasonable industry and
intelligence could satisfy these ordinary demands without
difficulty. Translated into an annual money rental they
would have amounted to but a few sous per acre. But this
happy situation did not long endure. As the settlers
continued to come, and as children born in the colony
grew to manhood, the demand for well-situated farms grew
more brisk, and some of the seigneurs found that they
need no longer seek tenants for their lands. On the
contrary, they found that men desiring land would come
to them and offer to pay not only the regular seigneurial
dues, but an entry fee or bonus in addition. The best
situated lands, in other words, had acquired a margin of
value over lands not so well situated, and the favoured
seigneurs turned this to their own profit. During the
early pears of the eighteenth century, therefore, the
practice of exacting a prix d'entree became common; indeed
it was difficult for a settler to get the lands he most
desired except by making such payment. As most of the
newcomers could not afford to do this they were often
forced to make their homes in unfavourable, out-of-the-way