■ INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 435 



exuberant growth of weeds and burs found a home therein, and when 

 the fleece was clipped— in which worli many a woman assisted — the labor 

 was only begun. The burs had to be piclced out and. before the days of 

 carding machines, the wool had to be hand carded, rolled and spun, 

 reeled and knit or woven, and all by the housewife and the assistance of 

 the sore but nimble fingers of her children. The flax upon which de- 

 pendence was placed for shirts, table linen, towels, summer wear and 

 countless things, was raised in the fields and prepared principally by the 

 men for spinning and Aveavlng. The women did the rest, involving a 

 catering to the fashion of bleaching by laborious and repeated washings 

 and sun drying for days. Oh, dear, will I never complete the list of 

 calls and duties? There was the poultry to protect from the minks and 

 weasles, the coons, the 'possums, the wet and the dry. the cold and the 

 heat, the hawks and the crows, and gapes and vermin!! and if any sur- 

 vived they must be chased hither and yonder, guided by the cheering 

 voice of the roosters and the cackling hens to the secret nests beneath 

 the convenient brush and logs, in hollow stump or hay stack, or fodder 

 shock. And when the feathers are ripe on squeaking geese or quacking 

 ducks, the blood blisters appear on the fingers of the women and girls— 

 for men had other things to do. The eggs helped out the food list im- 

 measurably, and many a necessity was bought with them at the store 

 and the grocery. And poultry products at times paid taxes, too. 



The cabin was fairly lighted by day in ordinary weather, for the wide 

 open door supplemented the eight by ten glass of the windows. At night 

 the blazing logs did good service, but at times we needed more light to 

 sew and read by. A cast or wrong iron lamp, which could be hung on 

 the wall or suspended from the ceiling was our first device. Any clean 

 grease or oil could be burned in it through the use of a strip of cloth or 

 wick. It was dirty, but a good makeshift. We also made tallow candles, 

 first by the dipping process, to wit: In melted tallow, not too hot, wicks 

 placed on slender sticks w^ere dipped in the liquid, held above it a few 

 seconds to drip, then rested on ti-estles to further cool, and the process 

 repeated until the proper size was attained. After a while the tin candle 

 molds came into use, such as are known to-day, in which stearine or 

 sperm candles are made. In 1859-60, the coal oil lamp appeared, and 

 with improvement both in the quality of oil and lamps continue to this 

 day— the approved light of the majority of the people of this earth. Arti- 

 ficial gas and electric light are found only in cities and large towns. 

 Fish oil has special uses, but had no place on farms. 



I have hinted at the labor of washing already. In detail the burden 

 was great, this county had only hard or lime water in its springs, wells, 

 creeks and veins. Troughs hewn from large ti-ee trunks, or now and 

 then a hogshead were placed on the ground beneath the eaves of houses 

 to catch rain water, a rather poor reliance in dry weather, and as wash- 

 ing was a weekly job we broke water by putting ashes in a large kettle 



