13 



WINTER LIFE OF FARMERS. 



The active work of farmers and their families was not in 

 any degree suspended in winter until within a period of a third 

 of a century. Indeed, the hardest labor of the year was per- 

 formed by them in cold weather ; they no more thought of 

 housing themselves when the snows came than of living by 

 begging or stealing. The country was comparatively new, and 

 there were clearings to be made, logs to be cut, wood to be 

 hauled, stone walls to be built (for many of our common field 

 walls were put up in the dead of winter; the ways were to be kept 

 clear of snow obstructions ; corn was to be shelled and taken 

 long distances to mill ; the cows, oxen, horses, and sheep were 

 to be fed, and the pigs looked after. 



There were no idle hours for the farmers of a generation 

 ago in winter ; and the same may be said of the women and 

 children in-doors. All was hurry in the kitchen from early 

 daylight to sunset ; and when the evening darkness came on, 

 the knitting, spinning, darning, and patching continued until 

 eight or nine o'clock, when all went tired to bed. The cloth- 

 ing worn by the family was of domestic make, fabrics of linen 

 as well as of wool. The wool was taken from the backs of 

 the sheep, scoured, carded, spun, woven, and dyed, on the 

 farm premises. The bark of the butternut afforded a favorite 

 tint of yellow-brown ; and chipped logwood and copperas, 

 bought of the distant grocer, gave the inky black suited to 

 garments for Sunday use. The hum of industry never ceased 

 in the dwellings of the earlier race of farmers, except at night 

 and on the " Lord's Day." 



But a great change has occurred, and now farmers have be- 

 come, so far as winter life is concerned, a kind of hibernating 



