tithe of what we should like to know; but even such shreds
of information are precious, for Hebert was Canada's
first patron of husbandry. He connected his name with no
brilliant exploit either of war or of peace; he had his
share of adventure, but no more than a hundred others in
his day; the greater portion of his adult years were
passed with a spade in his hands. But he embodies a type,
and a worthy type it is.

Most of Canada's early settlers came from Normandy, but
Louis Hebert was a native of Paris, born in about 1575.
He had an apothecary's shop there, but apparently was
not making a very marked success of his business when in
1604. he fell in with Biencourt de Poutrincourt, and was
enlisted as a member of that voyageur's first expedition
to Acadia. It was in these days the custom of ships to
carry an apothecary or dispenser of health-giving herbs.
His functions ran the whole gamut of medical practice
from copious blood-letting to the dosing of sailors with
concoctions of mysterious make. Not improbably Hebert
set out with no intention to remain in America; but he
found Port Royal to his liking, and there the historian
Lescarbot soon found him not only 'sowing corn and planting
vines,' but apparently 'taking great pleasure in the
cultivation of the soil.' All this in a colony which
comprised five persons, namely, two Jesuit fathers and
their servant, Hebert, and one other.

With serious dangers all about, and lack of support at
home, Port Royal could make no headway, and in 1613 Hebert