AGRICULTURE AND FARM LIFE

INTRODUCTION

Agriculture in Marshfield as elsewhere has shown immense change, from the time of the early Acadian settlers, through the unbroken link from the late eighteenth century to the present. We can only speculate what conditions may have been like and hopefully assume that the early pioneers would be pleased with the results that have been achieved.

'tl 1 “Let the wealthy and great, Roll in splendour and state, I envy it not! I declare it! I eat my own lamb, My chicken and ham, I shear my own fleece and I wear it.

I have lawns, I have bowers, I have fruits, I have flowers, The lark is my morning alarmer. So jolly boys now Here’s God speed the plough, Long life and success to the farmer. ”

Early Farming

Agriculture began in Marshfield with the Acadian settlers during the first half of the eighteenth century. An interpretation of the French census of 1728 places at least one family along the Hillsborough River in the Marshfield area. By 17522 another census listed thirty—four families consisting of 182 individuals who inhabited the north bank of the river between present day Charlottetown and Mt. Stewart. This group of settlers, many of whom had only recently arrived from Nova Scotia, had between them 221 cattle, 11 horses, 96 sheep, 130 swine and 330 fowl.

Settlement was along the river frontage and in the census of 1752 nearly every family reported a garden for vegetables and on average had a little over five acres of cleared land. The cleared land would have been used for sowing wheat, oats and peas, with wheat representing the largest single crop. To this cleared land must be added the marsh areas of the river which were used for harvesting hay for winter fodder.

-169-

With the fall of Louisbourg in 1758, the French regime drew to a close with the deportation of the Acadian settlers from Marshfield and other areas. They left behind3 some cleared land, domestic animals and plants some of which survived to be used by the early British colonists.

Hugh and John McCormack are the first settlers in Marshfield for which a record survives (see section on McCormacks). They settled along the river in 1792 and leased land that today would be at the end of the Lower Marshfield Road. Six years later in the census of 17984, the population of Marshfield was approximately twenty-nine people all settled along the river.

The first order of business for the McCormacks and other early pioneers would be to begin clearing land to provide timber for houses and other buildings and to provide land for food production. An eye witness description of this work is provided by Walter Johnstone5 in the early 1820’s.

“This is a piece of work of the most dirty and disagreeable nature... what with the smoke, sweat...their faces were little fairer than those of negroes in the west Indies, while the clothes were pretty much the same as if they had been dragged up a sooty chimney, ...the stamps were left standing about two feet high. The people then began planting their potatoes... With their hoes they scratch or rake a little earth... When time for planting arrives, man, wife, children and all that can handle a hoe must work... if the crop is not got in to a sufficient extent, want may stare them in the face. ”

After a period of several years, stumps would be removed and the cradle hills formed by centuries of deadfalls could be levelled. The sale of lumber for shipment to Britain also provided a source of income while land was being brought into agricultural production.

The census of 18056 provides some information on what these early farms in Marshfield may have looked like. A little less than one and a half cultivated acres existed for each inhabitant. About half of the cleared land was divided equally