Manners and Customs in Colonial Days 89 



wealth of the owners. It must not be thought that these gentry 

 belonged to the idle class; on the contrary, they were practical 

 farmers, merchants, or professional men ; for idleness was one of 

 the deadly sins, and several European visitors, as well as the offi- 

 cers of the French army under Rochambeau, have left their tes- 

 timony to the activity of the gentry of the American colonies. 

 The pasturage was excellent, and cattle, sheep, and swine 

 had free range of the woods. The Labadist missionaries who 

 visited New York in 1679 expressed surprise at the number, 

 size, and lusciousness of the peaches, and noted the fact that, 

 while many of them lay upon the ground, the hogs paid little 

 attention to them, as the hogs were apparently already gorged. 

 The cattle not only furnished milk and meat, but their hides 

 supplied the foot-wear of the family, being made into shoes by 

 the itinerant shoemaker on his yearly or half-yearly visits. 

 From the sheep was obtained wool, and flax was early planted 

 and cultivated; the hand loom stood in every household and 

 converted them into woollen cloth and into linen thread and 

 sheeting. The thread was of extraordinary strength and the 

 linen of a satiny texture. His homespun not only clothed the 

 farmer and his family, but he was able to send his surplus to 

 New York, whence it was sent to other parts of the coast and 

 to Europe. Tobacco was also added to the planting field, as 

 everybody smoked; and the Dutch were, beyond all others, 

 consumers of the fragrant weed. Added to these, the woods 

 abounded in wild birds and game, and deer were plentiful. 

 The waters of the Sound, the Harlem, and the Hudson, and of 

 the innumerable brooks and streams supplied the settlers 

 with fish ; so that of food there was a plenty, even upon the 

 tables of the poorest, while upon the tables of the well-to-do 

 there was such variety and profusion as to arouse the com- 

 ment of such Europeans as visited the colony. 



