THE NEXUS OF URBAN HORTICULTURE AND ARCHITECTURE IN NEW FRANCE

L.M. Farah
Surveys on the provisioning of cities across New France consent that bread and meat were the two main components of the colonists’ diets. Yet, while horti¬cultural produce were also significant elements of settlers’ subsistence, the physical effects and spatial consequences of urban horticulture in shaping these settlements have been overlooked.
A detailed comparison of maps depicting New France settlements, as climatically diverse as New Orleans, Montreal and Quebec City, yields surprising information on the layouts of these varied towns: what is recurrently represented on most plots is a garden. This paper explores the function of those gardens and how they interrelated with their surroundings. Particularly, it focuses on eighteenth century urban Montreal to investigate the potential impact of urban horticulture on the morphology of an early colonial settlement situated on a cold-climate island with limited growing periods. Four axis related to urban horticulture and the built environment are subsequently explored: (i) vegetable gardens; (ii) orchards; (iii) storage areas for fruits and vegetable; and (iv) spaces in which fruits are processed into alcoholic drinks.
Farah, L.M. (2010). THE NEXUS OF URBAN HORTICULTURE AND ARCHITECTURE IN NEW FRANCE. Acta Hortic. 881, 1045-1049
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.881.175
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.881.175
urban design, subsistence, food storage spaces, New World, Montreal
English

Acta Horticulturae