RURAL MANUFACTURES 307 



of grinding five biisliels of grain in an hour." ^ Hun- 

 dreds of these little grist-mills do a customs service 

 of great utility to the farmers of the adjacent country- 

 side. 



Similar in motive force and capacity were the saw- 

 mills, indispensable for getting out building material 

 where an effort was made to improve on the axe, 

 cross-cut saw and their accessories as a producer of 

 lumber. There was also a saw-mill on Eansom's 

 Creek aforesaid, operated "by one muley saw whose 

 running capacity would cut one thousand feet of 

 lumber in a day." ^ The father of Edward W. Bar- 

 ber of Eaton County built his mill-dam on the Scipio 

 Creek at first only of earth, which the flood waters 

 soon carried away. Then a mixture of brush pro- 

 duced a substantial barrage which two generations 

 left still intact. Here was erected the mill, "equipped 

 with an old-fashioned wooden water wheel with an 

 upright sash for the saw." ^ The rural population 

 not only relied on these little home-made saw-mills 

 for the local lumber supply, but they succeeded often 

 in producing a surplus for export down stream to 

 markets both within and without the State. Steam 

 replaced water as motive power in most of the saw- 

 mills, but numerous water-driven grist-mills remain 

 in the southern peninsula, while "midget mills," fre- 

 quently gasoline-driven, serve the farming commu- 

 nities in both peninsulas of the State today. In 

 1904 the flour and grist-mills of ]\Iiehigan produced 



^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections;' XXXII, 305. 

 'loia., WXl, 197. 



