2 



sons, settling on subdivisions, seem lacking in ambition, it must 

 be remembered that to go outside the settlement in the early 

 days was to go beyond the pale of defence, with such possi- 

 bilities of social life and of church and school facilities as 

 were in view. 



From the beginning of actual settlement farming was the 

 principal occupation of the colonists. The facilities for farm- 

 ing were not of the best. The implements (the spade and 

 hoe for planting and sowing) w^ere as primitive as well could 

 be ; but with these, by dint of great exertion, the settlers soon 

 managed to make a livelihood. The reaping was done with 

 the sickle and later on with the cradle. Then the age of 

 machinery came in, and the hoe gave place to the old wooden 

 plough whose oaken mouldboard was pointed with a rudely 

 made iron share. The sickle and cradle gave way to the 

 first cumbrous reaper, behind whose platform a stand was 

 placed for the able bodied man who forked off the grain in 

 sheaves as it fell, and to do this with regularity and neatness 

 in heavy crops tested even the brawniest Highlander of them 

 all. However the cutting of the wheat was only the first of 

 a series of difficult processes through which finally bread 

 w^as reached. The threshing was carried on first with flails 

 and the use of great "fans" and winnowing riddles to separate 

 the wheat from the chafi, a process that enables us to under- 

 stand many scriptural figures. Shortly after this era of flails 

 the two horse tread-mill was introduced, by which threshing 

 became a comparatively easy, if somewhat slow process, 

 varied only by the occasional fall backwards of a lazy horse 

 or the flying ofl" of the main band from the fly wheel. To get 

 the wheat into flour was the next problem. First of all the 

 " quern" was used, two flat round stones (the upper and the 

 nether), the upper one, having a handle, turned the stone upon 

 the wheat and brought it into some semblance of flour, not 

 over white but in the best degree a health-producing sub- 

 stance. Oriental customs may not have prevailed in the 

 colony, but it was in view of such a scene as might be seen at 

 these " querns" that our Lord spoke of identity in occupation 



