230 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



served and canned. Of grapes, we had Catawbas and Isabellas. Our 

 mothers made currant wine, and jams of strawberries, raspberries, 

 and blackberries. Cauliflowers, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers,, 

 were eaten fresh and pickled. Corn gave us fat hogs, and from fat 

 hogs we made ham and bacon and sausages; spare-ribs and sweet- 

 breads and scraps in killing time. We had butter, and cream, and 

 milk, and eggs, chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Our few sheep 

 gave us wool for stockings — knit at home — and lamb with mint 

 sauce. Our working farm mares were bred to blooded horses for 

 colts to sell. Our small forest gave wood for fires, and maple sugar 

 and syrup for slapjacks. To the neighboring mill we sent grists 

 of wheat and corn. AVheat and oats and dairy products gave us 

 money to buy groceries and clothes and books, and to pay school- 

 ing and pew rent, and subscriptions to the Albany Evening Journal? 

 the Tribune, Graham's Magazine, and (lodey's Lady's Book. For game,, 

 we hunted the coon in green corn and watermelon time, killed wood- 

 chucks and gray squirrels. We had frogs from the mill pond, fish 

 from the creek. We gathered beech nuts, hickory nuts, and but- 

 ternuts, which we cracked on Winter nights, and added to the feast 

 of apples and cider. We had quilting frolics, and paring bees, and 

 candy pullings,and spelling schools; went sleigh riding with the girls- 

 in Winter, and to picnics in Summer. We had Fourth of July celebra- 

 tions, and " general training," and house-raisings, and corn-huskings. 

 Our boots were made from home-tanned calf skins b}' the cross-roads 

 shoemaker, and our clothes by a seamstress who came to the house. 

 The girls wore Merrimac calico, at twelve and a half cents a yard — 

 seven yards made a frock of fast colors, and warranted to wash, the 

 hooks and eyesand trimmings thrown in. ' This was country life on a 

 small farm in Western New York. It was pleasant, joyous life — a 

 life of labor, study, and play. It was the type of country life. It 

 made good men and good women. It taught industry, economy — 

 made good citizens. It was a good and prosperous community. 

 Children honored and obeyed their parents, and parents worshiped 

 God. There were no hoodlums among the boys, no prostitutes among 

 the girls. Marriage was a sacrament, and divorce unknown. This 

 education gave the nation scholars and thinkers, statesmen and 

 patriots. It laid broad and deep the foundations of the State. The 

 ballot box was kept sacred and inviolate. Legislation Avas honest. 

 Laws w T ere enforced and obeyed. Republican government meant 

 the control of an intelligent majority. 



All this was the fruit of small farming in Western New York half 

 a century ago. It would be tedious to recite the home-raised com- 

 forts of this kind of farming life, or enumerate the variety of grains, 

 fruits, vegetables, products of daily toil from field and mill; the 

 pleasures and frolics of ice and snow, and the charming pursuits of 

 Summer, with gun and rod; the toil during the school vacations; 

 the chores of morning and noon and night, when attending the dis- 

 trict school, where only English was taught, and the hum buggery of 

 the present system had not invaded ; a home that never knew a. 

 reasonable want unsatisfied; where father, mother, sons, and daugh- 

 ters all toiled ; where labor was honorable and honored; where the 

 hired man and the hired maid were called " help," and sat in 

 equal honor at the farmer's long harvest table; a system which gave 

 to fifty thousand acres of land three hundred and thir^-three farms, 

 and — averaging by our family often persons — support, maintenance,, 



