Social Life and Institutions 205 
     
    
   
   
    
     lation increased the newcomers were forced to clear 
     
     the uplands though hopes were long entertained of 
     
     effecting a redistribution of the lands so as to give 
     
     old and new inhabitants a share in both the lowlands 
     
     and the uplands. To the Acadians, who loved the 
     
     marshes which required only to be dyked and dried 
     
     for a couple of years before seeding, it was not a 
     
     grateful task to cut down the forest and extract huge 
     
     stumps before the uplands could be made available. 
     
     But, albeit with heavy hearts, they made the at- 
     
     tempt; and, as soon as the brush was burned, they 
     
     planted and sowed amongst the stumps until the lat- 
     
     ter should decay and could be more easily removed. 
     
     Under these circumstances serious fires were inevi- 
     
     table and the correspondence of the period frequently 
     
     refers to damage by such fires. In 1752, de La Roque 
     
     found Gillaume Patris situated on a piece of land 
     
     granted him at St. Peters by Aubert and Dubuisson 
     
     in 1723, but he could not produce the deed as it had 
     
     been burned in the fire of 1724. In 1736 a fire had 
     
     taken place in St. Peters and the Northeast River. 
     
     It was so serious that the crops were destroyed, help 
     
     had to be procured from Louisburg, and seed from 
     
     Acadia. In 1752, Magdelaine Poitevin, also, reported 
     
     to de La Roque that she held her land by grant from 
     
     de Pensens and Dubuisson but could not produce her 
     
     deed as it had been burned at the time of the fire 
     
     fourteen years ago. If her memory served her rightly 
     
     there was another fire in 1738, but it is possible that 
     
     she referred to the big fire of 1736. In 1742 St. 
     
     Peters again suffered from a fire which not only did