I Come From a Long Line of Sons

When Quebec was being settled along the beautiful St. Lawrence River it was thought to be a shame to deny settlers the serenity of the might river. So the farms that were built were long farms, all with a small footing along the river.

What an egalitarian society! Everybody had a nice view. But as time wore on the families that went to more sons faced a problem. It was thought that every son must have a farm. So the retiring parents would split up the farm into however many smaller farms demanded by their sons.

But the old egalitarian society still threw its might shadow along the St. Lawrence River. The farms became skinnier and more numerous than having been originally planned. Still if a farmer only had to split his giant farm into three for his sons, that still left three viable farms.

A few generations in, it became a problem. Families that were cursed with too many sons, were now forced to divide the farm into farms that were only capable of providing part time work and money to the sons. Some of these sons fled to the towns and only worked their farms on weekends.

Too many sons may have been a curse but some of the sons had fun with it. One son extolled the virtues of his farm because it was extremely efficient. His farm was the width of a tractor implement. The one long farm eliminated the need for turns and with one pass the planting and the harvesting could be done. The barn was of course placed at one end of the long skinny farm.

Did the sons curse their luck? No, they were eager to show you their skinny tract of land and summed it all up with the line, “I come from a long line of sons.”

When weed whackers began to make their debut, some unlucky son from the St. Lawrence River, souped his up to ‘harvest’ the whacked, behind the weed whacker. His farm was so thin, that’s all it took. He briefly made money by selling the footage to a weed whacking company.

Today some St. Lawrence River farms have become even thinner. Max Lecoutier (the family liked the irony of his name) inherited a two inch strip of a farm. Basketball line markings are about this thick, so now Max says proudly, “I come from a long line.”