72 THEISLAND ACADIANS

shows that farming constituted their principal means of subsistence. The petitioners in this document were requesting help from the government because their grain crop had been completely destroyed by mice and they feared their roots or tubers would suffer the same fate’*. Several years later when the inhabitants of Rustico signed their lease with the proprietor, Isaac Todd, they were all identified as farmers”.

John McGregor pointed out at the beginning of the century that a large number of Acadians on the Island were involved almost entirely in farming which, he wrote, made them fairly independent econom- ically. Nevertheless, it was difficult for families to make their farms pay since they were reduced to poverty as a result of exorbitant rents and disputes over land titles. Furthermore, constant relocation was not conducive to agricultural development.

John McGregor concurred with other observers of the time in stating that Acadians were not as successful as other Island farmers, be they English, Scottish, Loyalist or Irish’*. It should be noted, how- ever, that agricultural practices on the whole left a great deal to be desired; documents of the period deplore the primitive farming tech- niques in use. Newly cleared lands remained relatively productive for several years but were soon exhausted due to farmers’ ignorance of how to maintain soil fertility. Few farmers rotated their crops or fertilized the land. Manure was scarce because the small number of farm animals roamed the woods instead of being contained in pastures. Farmers were not yet exploiting the readily available fertilizers from the sea such as mussel mud, fish and seaweed.

The fifth lieutenant-governor of the colony, Colonel John Ready, who arrived on the Island in 1824, was interested in promoting agricul- ture and encouraged the formation of the Central Agricultural Society in 18277. Thirteen regional societies were created between 1827 and 1842, including one in Cascumpec in 1840 and another in Tignish in 18427’. Although both these societies were situated in areas with a sizeable Acadian population, the farmers of French origin do not appear to have participated in the movement which was organized and run by the more affluent English-speaking farmers.

The improvements that took place in agriculture during the first half of the nineteenth century can be attributed to the development of agricultural societies and particularly to the arrival of some settlers