TOOLS AND RURAL INDUSTRIES 



191 



On a Harvest 

 Bottle 



toll by the style of the letter. Moreover, our sensible ancestors 



were content with one Christian name, and, indeed, what can 



any Christian want with more ! F. B. and H. H. were modest 



drinkers ; three half-pints of liquor is as much as their bottles 



will hold. 



could manage his half-gallon. His mark 

 is a very old one, and the lettering is so 

 pretty that I thought it deserved a picture 

 to itself. 



The letters are incised, not branded. 



His bottle bears a much more recent A. C. C. 



T. H. made a modest little mark of some antiquity. 



W. K. — this mark is not done with a regular brand, but 



freehand with a hot iron. The man who made it got the 



twist the wrong way in the right-hand 



part of the K. This bottle bears 



another mark, I. M., also of old 



character. Another, a three-quart size, 



has the head almost covered with 



records of ownership. R. M. and I. 



M. are branded, P. B. is incised. It 



has had pitch run into the joint 



where the head fits the staves. 



R. S.'s bottle was made of a very beautiful piece of oak. 



Another H. H. took a dark blue quart to the field. E. B. 



used a bottle hooped with wicker. These are still made ; I 



use one for taking out the water to boil for picnic tea. 



Some of the older harvest bottles have the carrying-cord 



made of horse-hair, generally black and white ; sometimes 



black, white, and chestnut. Generally it is in a close, tight 



plait of three, but in one I have it is a kind of square plait 



of four strands, something like the working of a whip-thong. 



When these horse-hair cords were used, the maker was not 



Lettering on a Harvest 

 Bottle 



