33 Success (m [/10 Edge 
     
    
   
   
    
     where the largest population of Acadians had settled. It 
     
     seems likely that the idea came from Fataer Georges- 
     
     Antoine Belcourt, a man of many talents and much 
     
     experience, who worked hard to better the lot of his 
     
     parishioners and Acadians generally between 1859 and 
     
     1869. Farmers at that time had to grow their own seed 
     
     grain for the following year, as well as enough to feed 
     
     their families and livestock, and still have some for sale 
     
     or barter. If the crops failed, as they did in the late 18405, 
     
     farmers had to use their seed grain for food, and pay often 
     
     exorbitant prices to acquire new seed in the spring. The 
     
     “graineries” took care of that problem in a co-operative way. 
     
     Each member of the “grainerie” put a certain proportion of 
     
     his grain crop in a special barn. In the spring, any farmer 
     
     with no seed grain of his own could take out a proportion 
     
     to plant, promising to pay it back in kind - “five bushels for 
     
     every four”- in the fall. The system worked very well, and 
     
     rapidly spread to other Acadian communities. Eventually 
     
     there were no less than seven ”graineries” in the Tignish 
     
     area alone. Unfortunately no record remains to tell us how 
     
     long they lasted or how many people were members. From 
     
     the experience in the Evangeline region, we can extrapolate 
     
     that there might have been forty members and Upwards in 
     
     each one. New members paid a small entrance fCE, typically 
     
     $1.50 or $2.00. All members contributed to the bUilding of 
     
     the barn, furnishing either money or ”the eqUiV’alent in 
     
     shingles, plus twenty-five feet of good boards." {é Tignish 
     
     ”graineries" might have lasted until the turn of the century, 
     
     perhaps longer, when they became obsolete, due to the easy 
     
     availability and better quality of ”seedsmen’s” seed. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Cheese Factory, (Sec document on p1gy 58 at the 
     
     cud of this chapter) which opened in 1898 and burned down 
     
     about sixty years later, was another matter. It V'Ias the local 
     
     result of some years of intensive promotion of dairy farming 
     
     and cheese-makin g by the provincial government. This