Census of Sieur de La Roque 173

should be permitted and encouraged to pursue the cod fishing industry. There has for a long time been a mis- taken belief, founded on a lack of experience of the conditions, that the settlers who follow the fisheries neg- lect the cultivation of the soil. The harbors of Saint Pierre and of l’Acadie are a certain proof in evidence to the contrary. Witness the extensive clearings which the settlers have made in those places, and I venture to affirm that the fishery is an incontestable means of pro- moting the culture of the soil, because it enables settlers to employ domestics, and to raise cattle and live stock for lack of which land will be allowed to remain idle. This is not the only advantage that would accrue to the settlers, for it can be stated as a certain fact verified by experience that if ever again the people suffer such hardships, as are said to return every ten years, in the form of a plague of locusts, followed the ensuing year, when beech nuts are plentiful by one of field mice, they will be enabled to support the losses these animals occa- sion there, by means of the proceeds of the fisheries.

At East Point, also, a settlement dating from 1719, not a bushel of grain had been sown. The spe- cial circumstance affecting this settlement was a disastrous fire which swept over the original site on the south of the point and embraced in its destructive course several leagues on the north side of the island. This misfortune had led the settlers to move to the north side of the point two leagues to the westward and there they had cleared about sixty acres, but were dependent upon government assistance for seed; “and if the King does not make them a gift or loan of seed so that they can sow it next spring they will