THE OLD FARMER. 13 



wore out. A cast-iron plow, with the necessary hoes, rakes, 

 and scythes, constituted the "boughten" farm machinery. 

 The grain was threshed with a hand-flail an tlie barn floor in 

 the winter, while the women spun and wove in tlie house. 

 Many continued this practise long after threshing-machines 

 came in. 



The boys got their spending money by picking up nuts in 

 the woods and from the sale of the fur of an occasional mink 

 or muskrat. Our social gatherings were husking bees and 

 house-raisings for the men, quilting parties for the women, 

 and apple- paring bees, and, above all things, the winter 

 singing-school, for the young men and women. The centers 

 of influence were the churches, of which two or three denomi- 

 nations — not too sure of each other's full hold upon salvation 

 — were always represented, the ministers receiving from $200 

 to $300 per year, partly in money and partly in provisions, 

 with the necessary wood and an annual donation party. The 

 reading matter was the New York WeeJdy Tribune (I do not 

 remember what standard paper the Democrats took; there 

 were very few Democrats where I lived), Godeifs Ladies' Book, 

 the New York Ledger in families of doubtful piety, the Phreno- 

 logical Journal by those of advanced thought, the religious 

 paper of the denomination, and the county paper. Each 

 family had a few books, which were exchanged until all had 

 read them, and there was always the Bible, the Sunday-school 

 library, and Dick's or Josephus' works, to fall back on. The 

 education was in the district school. 



The above outline comprises or suggests the essential 

 features of the life of the thrifty 100-acre farmer on the 

 Western Reserve in Ohio fifty years ago. Further east there 

 was a little more ready money and luxuries; further west 

 there was less, and more dependence on wild game for meat 

 and for furs to get money with. The great prairies had 

 hardly been touched. Transportation was slow and expensive, 

 and the products of each district were mostly consumed 

 therein, the small surplus which accumulated painfully 

 finding its w^ay to the seaboard in exchange for such necessa- 

 ries as we could not ourselves produce. The farmer's interest 



