Editing Acadia (section)

==Economy==
Most Acadian households were self-sufficient,{{sfn|Brasseaux|1987|p=10}} with families engaged in subsistence farming only for a few years while they established their farms.{{sfn|Brasseaux|1987|p=9}} Very rapidly the Acadians established productive farms that yielded surplus crops that allowed them to trade with both Boston and Louisbourg.{{efn|Fowler's analysis of census records and other primary documents reveal that most farms by 1686 were producing in livestock alone, on a per capita basis, twice as much as was needed for their own consumption. This does not include food crops and the animals harvested from the natural environment.<ref name="Fowler2009"/>}} 
Farms tended to remain small plots of land worked by individual families rather than slave labor.{{sfn|Moogk|2000|p=12}} The highly productive dyked marshlands and cleared uplands produced an abundance of fodder that supported significant production of cows, sheep and pigs. Farmers grew various grains: wheat, oats, barley, hops and rye; vegetables: peas, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, chives, shallots, asparagus, parsnips and beets; fruit: apples, pears, cherries, plums, raspberry and white strawberry.<ref>{{cite book |first=John S. |last=Erskine |title=The French Period in Nova Scotia. A.D. 1500-1758 And Present Remains a historical, archaeological, and botanical survey |publisher=Self Published |location=Wolfville, Nova Scotia |date=1975}}</ref> 
In addition they grew crops of hemp and flax for the production of cloth, rope, etc.<ref name="Fowler2009"/><ref name="Griffiths2005"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Clark|first=Andrew Hill|title=Acadia: the geography of early Nova Scotia to 1760|url=https://archive.org/details/acadiageographyo0000clar|url-access=registration|year=1968|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=9780299050801}}</ref>

From the rivers, estuaries and seas they harvested shad, smelts, gaspereau, cod, salmon, bass, etc., utilizing fish traps in the rivers, weirs in the inter-tidal zone and from the sea with lines and nets from their boats. The fishery was pursued on a commercial basis as in 1715 at the Minas Basin settlements, when the Acadian population there numbered only in the hundreds, they had "between 30 - 40 sail of vessels, built by themselves, which they employ in fishing" reported Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Caulfield to the Board of Trade.{{sfn|MacMechan|1900}} Charles Morris observed the Acadians at Minas hunting beluga whales.<ref name=Morris/> The Acadians also varied their diets by hunting for moose, hare, ducks and geese, and pigeon.<ref name="Fowler2009"/>

After 1630, the Acadians began to build dikes and drain the sea marsh above Port Royal. The high salinity of the reclaimed coastal marshland meant that the land would need to sit for three years after it was drained before it could be cultivated.{{sfn|Brasseaux|1987|p=11}} The land reclamation techniques that were used closely resembled the enclosures near La Rochelle that helped make solar salt.{{sfn|Moogk|2000|p=7}}

As time progressed, the Acadian agriculture improved, and Acadians traded with the British colonies in [[New England]] to gain ironware, fine cloth, rum, and salt. During the French administration of Acadia, this trade was illegal, but it did not stop some English traders from establishing small stores in Port Royal.{{sfn|Moogk|2000|p=174}} Under English rule, the Acadians traded with New England and often smuggled their excess food to Boston merchants waiting at Baie Verte for transshipment to the French at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.{{sfn|Brasseaux|1987|p=16}}

Many adult sons who did not inherit land from their parents settled on adjacent vacant lands to remain close to their families.{{sfn|Moogk|2000|p=178}} As the Acadian population expanded and available land became limited around Port Royal, new settlements took root to the northeast, in the Upper [[Bay of Fundy]], including Mines, Pisiquid, and [[Beaubassin]]. Many of the pioneers into that area persuaded some of their relatives to accompany them, and most of the frontier settlements contained only five to ten interrelated family units.{{sfn|Brasseaux|1987|p=12}}