Rural Economy in New England 363 



on which the women made garters, points, glove-ties, hair-laces, 

 stay-laces, shoe-strings, hat-bands, belts and breeches-suspenders, 

 often called " galluses. "^ The production of these odds and ends of 

 apparel shows in a striking manner the extent to which the household 

 was self-sufficient in its supply of clothing. Knitting was an impor- 

 tant branch of the domestic textile industry, producing the hosiery, 

 mittens, shawls, comforters, etc., for all the family. It must be 

 remembered that the foregoing discussion applies only to the con- 

 ditions prevailing in inland towns. In the seaports and larger river 

 towns, the inhabitants had long used clothing and household furni- 

 ture of foreign manufacture. 



The Building and Furnishing of Farmhouses. 



In the furnishings of their homes, the inland farmers relied to a 

 very limited extent on exchange with the world outside their immedi- 

 ate vicinity, and in fact supplied their wants, as in the matter of 

 food and clothing, largely by the exertions of their own families. In 

 the construction of their houses, those story-and-a-half structures 

 with long sloping roofs which one may still occasionally see in the 

 more isolated country regions, they utilized the timber growing in the 

 vicinity, often on their own land, and employed as workmen those of 

 their neighbors who carried on the carpenter's trade as a by-industry 

 of farming.2 Only a small amount of hardware was used and most 

 of this, such as bolts and hinges, was made by the local blacksmith. 

 The nails, which were used much more sparingly than now, were 

 often made by the farmers themselves from nail rods purchased either 

 from the local store or from a nearby slitting-mill.^ Glass, which had 



' Earle, Op. cit., p. 225. A detailed description of the technical processes of 

 hand- weaving as carried on in those days is contained in Chapter X of that work, 

 pp. 212-251. Other chapters which have been consulted are Chapters VIII 

 and IX, pp. 167-211, describing the cultivation and preparation of the flax and 

 woolen fibers. 



2 Supra p. 262 ff. The task of raising the heavy beams which constituted 

 the frame of the structure into position was accomplished by the united eflforts 

 of a large number of neighbors. This is another example of the cooperation of 

 inland farmers for the accomplishment of a task now undertaken by specialized 

 workmen, and, like the husking-bee, was utilized as an occasion for social inter- 

 course and amusement. 



'Supra p. 270. Coxe says: "Nailmaking is frequently a household business 

 in New England, a small anvil being |ound no inconvenience in the corner of a 

 farmer's chimney." View of the United States, p. 269. In another place he 

 estimates the quantity of nails used by an average household in buildmg and 

 repairing at ten pounds per annum. Ibid. p. 144. 



