t^ 



368 Percy Wells Bidwell 



/.tS''- xhe Result of Self-sufficient Economy was a Low Standard of Living. 

 The effect of this self-sufficiency in family and in village life was 

 a low degree of efficiency in the production of wealth in both these 

 economic units. The lack of a market made specialization impossible, 

 there was practically no well defined division of labor except that 

 existing between the sexes. Hence the gains from the adaptation 

 of individual talents to especial tasks, and from the acquisition of skill 

 through continuous repetition of identical movements or processes 

 were almost entirely absent. The farmer who must also be his 'own 

 tool-maker, carpenter, wheelwright, mason and general handy man 

 could not hope to acquire any great efficiency in agriculture. He had 

 no time to devote to careful experiments in the culture of crops or the 

 breeding of stock, or even to read the books in which the results of 

 scientific investigation were even then recorded. On the other hand, 

 the mason, carpenter, doctor or lawyer who had to interrupt the 

 pursuit of his especial avocation in order to procure food and clothing 

 for himself and his family by means of agriculture, could not hope to 

 develop any great degree of efficiency as an artisan or as a professional 

 man. The result was that the bulk of the population of New Eng- 

 land was at this time on what we should now call a low standard of 

 living, and even this standard was supported only by arduous and 

 unremitting toil. One large-minded observer has said: "No mode 

 of life was ever more expensive; it was life at the expense of labor too 

 stringent to allow the highest culture and the most proper enjoyment. 

 Even the dress of it was more expensive than we shall ever see again. "^ 

 The raw materials for food, clothing and shelter were at hand in 

 abundance, but in working up these materials into consumable 

 commodities, the people of those days were at a very great disad- 

 vantage. Only when we compare the clumsy and ineffective appara- 

 tus with which they worked, such as the old-fashioned Dutch oven 

 and the open fireplace, the spinning wheel and the handloom, with 

 the modern cooking appliances and the power-driven spinning frames 

 and looms, can we appreciate to some extent how "expensive" their 

 life really was. 



The Contrary Opinion Held by Travelers. 



How, then, can we explain the general impression of comfort and 

 ease in getting a living which seems to have been made upon con- 

 temporary observers? Numerous passages might be cited from the 

 travelers who passed through New England from the close of the 



^ Bushnell, Horace. The Age of Homespun, p. 393. 



