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Chapter XXII
Agriculture, With A Brief Mention Of Our Domestic Animals.
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"may go through the middle of the woods between the trees without getting any damage." The rich soil, exposed to the sun through the leafless branches of the dead trees, was prolific, and, as we learn from a writer in 1684, if an emigrant arrived in Pennsylvania in September, two men could easily prepare that fall land for corn sufficient to return "in the following harvest twenty quarters, which are a hundred and sixty bushels English measure, and this should not cause astonishment when it is considered that a bushel of wheat sown produces forty bushels at harvest." Wheat, until after the Revolution, was seeded between the rows of corn at its last plowing in August, and the seed was chopped in around the hills with a hoe. During the war of independence the Hessian fly, which is said to have been brought to this country in the provender transported hither for the use of the mercenary soldiers, multiplied so rapidly that they destroyed the early sown wheat, and this circumstance changed the season of planting. Rye was grown largely, for it not only made a favorite whiskey and sold readily, but it supplied almost all the coffee used in the rural districts, and until manufactured goods did away with home spinning every farmer had a patch of flax sown on his place. Many old persons can remember how pretty the sight was when the blue blossom was on the flax and "the bloom was on the rye." The apple- and peach-orchards in early days were always planted near the house, from the fruit of which the family distilled cider, apple jack, and peach brandy, as well as kept barrels of the former fruit, while large quantities of apples and peaches were always dried for winter use.
When Governor Printz first came to this country, it is reported that the grass even in the woods grew to the height of two feet, but as that statement was made by an aged Swede, whose father came over with the Swedish Governor, to Professor Kalm, in 1748, it may be accepted with some grains of allowance. It has also been claimed that Col. Thomas Leiper, one of the most public-spirited men the State has ever had, introduced clover to the colony, a statement that will not bear investigation, for in 1709, Jonathan Dickinson, in a letter, speaks of buying red clover-seed, remarking that "the white clover already tinges the woods as a natural production."1 The old system of husbanding, in vogue until threatened starvation compelled the farmers to change the ruinous plan, is set forth in a letter from Squire Thomas Cheyney, of Thornbury, written in 1796 to relatives in England.2 He says, - |
1 Watson's Annals, vol. ii. p. 485.
2 Futhey and Cope's "History of Chester County," p. 339. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Our land is mostly good, but we have dropt our old method of farming. We used to break up our fields in May, cross or stir them in August, and sow them with wheat and rye in September. This was done once in three or four years in rotation: in the intermediate spaces between them were pastured. The land would produce from twelve to twenty bushels per acre. This way was followed until the land run out, as we call it. We planted corn, sowed barley, oats, and flax, likewise buckwheat, in small portions of land allotted for that purpose, which took the greatest part of our dung to manure it; our meadows got some, and we had very little left for our Winter grain. We followed this old way until we could scarcely raise our bread and seed." Dr. Smith records that as early as 1734 silk was made in the colony, the insects being fed on the native mulberry leaves. In 1770 an effort was made to arouse general interest in the culture, and to that end premiums were given to the person sending the greatest weight of cocoons to "a public filature established in Philadelphia." In 1771 Chester County sent three hundred and thirty-five pounds, the following being the names of the contributors:
Mary Newlin, of Concord, died in 1790, in her one hundred and second year. She was born in Thornbury in 1688, and it is stated that she "remembered when her father and others deaded the timber and burned the leaves, and hoed in their wheat by hand, their being few horses and scarce a plow in the settlement."3 | 3 Ib. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Goats we know were early sent to the Delaware River settlement, and we have reason to believe that other domestic animals were transported to New Sweden with the colonists. Horses are spoken of long before the coming of Penn. In 1679 the journal of Sluyter and Danckers mentions them as used for riding, and many other references to these animals occur in our early annals. Penn, when he came in 1682, brought with him "three blooded mares, a fine white horse, not full blooded, and other inferior animals, not for breeding, but for labor," while in 1699, when he returned the second time, intending to remain in the province, he brought with him Tamerlane, a colt by Godolphi Barb, to whom the best horses in England trace their pedigree. But previous to Penn's last coming we have the statement of Gabriel Thomas, that the "horses in Pennsylvania | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||