As today, Bedford County farmers in the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries were either crop farmers or livestock / dairy farmers (sometimes called ranchers). Both types of farming were important and necessary. Both types of farming were difficult in their own ways. The crop farmers, in order to sow their seeds, had to till the soil with primitive (by today's standards) tools. Then they had to reap their harvest without the benefit of machines to make it easy. The livestock farmers, in order to gain the full benefits of their livestock (e.g. milk, eggs and meat from dairy animals, wool for clothing from sheep and power to perform difficult tasks from horses and oxen) had to perform the care and handling of those livestock by hand.
The life of a farmer was, and in most cases still is, a hard life. The work is often back-breaking and the rewards are often meagre. The intensity of the work involved in farming, was, quantitatively speaking, so much greater, as compared to other occupations. Granted just about every occupation would have required a high degree of physical labor prior to the industrial revolution and the advent of mechanization. But while some aspects of most occupations might be arduous, the majority of farming involved back-breaking labor.
Every job on the farm had its difficulties, no matter how commonplace or insignificant it might seem to the casual observer. Even the most mundane of tasks posed physical harm to the farmer. An item from a book published in 1865 gave instructions to help farmers work more safely. The following article titled: How to pitch manure gave the following advice.
"As pitching manure is laborious work, it is important to render the labor as easy as possible by the exercise of skill in handling the fork, or shovel. To pitch easily, thrust a long-handled fork into the manure, and make a fulcrum of one knee for the handle to rest on. Then a thrust downward with the right arm will detach the forkful from the mass of manure and elevate it from one to two feet high, by the expenditure of little muscular force."
Farming is a unique occupation. It is very unfortunate that people often take it for granted. Unlike most other occupations, in the past as well as now, farming is governed by the seasons and the weather. Most occupations other than farming, two hundred years ago as well as this year, were performed inside. The time of day and the time of year may have had some effect on how much work could be accomplished by tradesmen such as millers grinding grain (if the millpond was frozen), or gardeners, whose work was by necessity seasonal. But it had very little effect on most trades which were conducted indoors. A shoemaker could make or repair shoes as easily in February as in July. A blacksmith could make a hinge as easily at ten o'clock as at five o'clock. A farmer couldn't just decide one morning in February that it would be a good day to harvest the wheat, nor could he wait until ten o'clock in the morning to feed the cows. Things had to be done when, as nature demanded, they had to be done.
The oldest form of crop farming, of agriculture, was the cultivation of a species of wheat called Einkorn. It grew throughout the Middle East around ten thousand years ago. It is believed to have been the ancestor of the plants which belong to the category of 'cereal grass.' Cereal grasses include wheat, corn, oats, barley, beans, rice, sorghum and rye. All cereal grasses produce grain, which refers to the seeds of the plant. Theories have been advanced that einkorn became cross pollinated with another, unknown grass to produce Emmer wheat, the species that was widely cultivated throughout the Middle East for many centuries.
The early peoples learned to gather cereal plants after they had gone to seed, because the seeds, the grain, could be crushed, mixed with a liquid, and made into something that could be easily eaten.
The earliest cultivation of grain bearing cereal grasses, such as einkorn and emmer wheat, is believed to have occurred around 8,000 BC. It has been theorized that the women who gathered the einkorn might have noticed that when they accidently dropped some of the wheat's seeds on the ground they sprouted new plants. And from that chance discovery, the idea of deliberately planting some of the seeds from the plants that they had picked was born. At first, the seeds would have been sown by broadcasting, or freely scattering them by hand. At some point, it was discovered that if the seeds were sown in rows, it was easy to walk between the growing plants to pull out weeds, and later to cut and gather the seed bearing plants.
Circa 4,000 BC, the plough (variously, plow) is believed to have been invented by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. In its initial form, the plough would probably have been nothing more than a forked tree limb, the one prong having been sharpened in order for it to cut into the ground. The plough made it possible to harness the power of oxen to dig the furrows in which the grain seeds would be sown.
The seed drill was the next invention that benefited agriculture. Despite the fact that most history books give the 18th century English farmer, Jethro Tull, the credit for having invented the 'seed drill', one has been found to be illustrated on a carved stone seal from Sumer. The seed drill was a variation of the plough, which dug the furrow, but which also contained a funnel and tube assembly to drop the seeds into the furrow at the same time.
In addition to the plough, archaeological discoveries have found that the ancient Sumerians also invented the sickle, the tool used to cut and gather the cereal grasses. In fact, the sickle might have predated the actual cultivation of grains by a couple thousand years. Tools such as sickles would have been needed to cut the cereal grasses whether they were cultivated by man or growing wild.
In the nearly six thousand years that stretched between the Sumerian invention of the plough and the Colonial Period of the fledgling United States of America, the sowing and reaping of cereal grasses changed very little.
The early settlers of Bedford County, in the American frontier that existed during the Colonial Period, sowed and reaped cereal grasses by manual labor. They used ploughs that retained the basic shape of those invented in Sumeria, but which bore iron ploughshares, to dig furrows in the ground. This was known as 'tilling' the soil. It should be noted that at first, when ploughs with iron shares were introduced, many farmers would not use them, fearing that the iron would poison the soil, and by extension, their crops.
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in his book, Letters from an American Farmer, described the ploughs and manner of hitching the ploughs to draft animals in 18th Century America:4
Our next most useful implement is the plough. Of these we have various sorts, according to the soil which we have to till. First, [there is] the large two-handled plough with an English lock and coulter locked in its point. This is drawn by either four or six oxen and serves for rooty, stony land. This is drawn sometimes by two oxen and three horses. The one-handled plough is the most common in all level soils. It is drawn either by two or by three horses abreast; and when the ground is both level and swarded, we commonly put upon these a Dutch lock, by far the best for turning up, and the easiest draft for the horses. A team of four oxen is conducted by a lad. If it consists of two horses and two oxen, the boy rides one of the horses, and another lad drives the oxen. Our two- and three-horse teams are guided by the man who holds the plough. Lines are properly fixed to the horses' bridles on each side and passed around the plough-handle. The ploughman keeps them straight with his left hand while he guides his plough with his right. Three horses abreast are the most expeditious as well as the strongest team we know of for common land. We cross-plough with two horses, commonly one and a half acres a day. We have, besides, a smaller sort, called the corn-plough, with which we till through the furrows, and a harrow proportioned to the distance at which our corn is planted. Our heavy harrows are made sometimes triangular, sometimes square. This last we call the Dutch one. In the rough, stony parts of New England, they use no other team but oxen; and no people on earth understand the management of them better. They show them with admirable skill and neatness. They are coupled with a yoke which plays loose on their necks. It is fastened with a bow which is easily taken off or put on. They draw by the top of their shoulders.
The farmer began the process of planting his crop by ploughing the ground to break up the soil. The ploughs available in the 1700s were heavy, clumsy things, especially difficult to use in ground that was full of rocks and tree stumps. Cross ploughing was often necessary to get the ground dug up. The farmer would follow the ploughing by dragging a harrow across the ground. The harrow was an implement that consisted of a heavy wooden frame, often in the shape of a triangle or 'A', that was fitted, on the underside, with 'teeth.' Harrows were usually made of oak frames with hickory, or iron, teeth. Dragging the harrow across the freshly ploughed field would break up the larger clods. It also was used to remove any stump roots that were loosened up by the plough.
Growing up on a farm (albeit in the early 1900s), this author's mother, Dollie (Nofsker) Smith, remembered her brothers towing a drag over the field after harrowing it. The 'drag' was simply a log or heavy plank that would be hitched to the horse or donkey to be dragged over the ploughed and harrowed soil in order to more evenly and finely break up any remaining clods. The farmer might stand on the drag while it was being used in order to add more weight to it. Dragging the field was also sometimes called 'rubbing' it.
After the field's soil was sufficiently prepared, the farmer would use a seed drill (variously called a 'seeder' or 'planter') to plant the grains in rows. This was an implement that was constructed on the order of a wheelbarrow. It had a wooden spike positioned behind the wheel for the purpose of opening a small furrow in the ground. Grains or seeds were dumped into a hopper, and allowed to drop downward through a tube and into the furrow. Some seed drills had an additional attachment at the back, which would push the furrow's ground back on itself, covering over the grains or seeds. Farmers who did not use seed drills would perform that process by hand, making a furrow either with a plough or with a hoe. And after the grains or seeds would be dropped into the furrow (usually by the farmer's children) they would be covered over using a hoe or rake. It was said that three seeds should be placed together at any spot: "The first for the crow; the second for the cutworm; and the third to grow."
After the crop had grown and was ready to be gathered, the farmer would cut it by hand, using either a sickle or a scythe.
The sickle was the smaller of the two tools. As noted above, the sickle has been found to have been in use by the Sumerians circa 6,000 B.C. By the 1700s there were a number of styles of sickles, including smooth edged ones called reaping hooks and ones with serrated edges. The sickles used in the American colonies during the Colonial Period had handles made of wood that were about eight inches long. The blade, made of wrought iron, was a gracefully curved 'C' shape with one end fitted into the wood handle. The inside curve of the blade was sharpened to a knife edge.
The sickle was intended to be used with only one hand. The farmer would hold a 'hay crook' in the other hand. The hay crook was simply a piece of wood about two feet long with a hook-like barb, cut into the one end. A natural tree branch or root, with a barbed or hooked end, might be used in place of a manufactured one. The hay crook was used, as an extension of the farmer's one arm, to pull aside a bunch of the crop, such as wheat. Then the farmer could slice the bunch off near the ground with a side to side, slashing motion of the sickle in the other hand. The hay crook permitted the farmer to safely hold a bunch of the crop without having to worry about getting his hand cut off by the slicing motion of the sickle.
The scythe was a larger version of the sickle that was intended to be used with both hands. It consisted of a slightly curved, but almost straight knife blade attached to a long graceful 'S' shaped bent-wood handle called the snath. The earliest scythes had straight poles for the snath; but then naturally bent snaths came into use. It was apparently discovered that a curved handle would allow the user to swing it with more ease and efficiency. The snath (variously, sneath or snid), was being fashioned out of a willow pole, heated in oil and bent to the 'S' shape by the 1700s. The end to end length of the snath of a scythe was roughly five feet. Positioned on the snath at angles that allowed for ease of handling were two 'nibs' or hand grips. These were also made of wood and fastened to the snath by means of iron or leather straps. Their positions on the snath could be adjusted a bit to accommodate the height of the user. The wrought iron blade was usually 1-1/2 to 2 feet in length, although some might reach to three feet in length. The angle at which the blade was attached to the end of the snath was such that the user could swing the scythe from side to side, and the blade would glide just above the ground, cutting off the crop neatly at the ground level. A cradle scythe was a regular scythe to which a 'cradle' of three to five 'fingers' or ribs was attached above and parallel to the blade. The purpose of the cradle was to catch the crop as it was cut, allowing the two jobs of cutting and gathering to be done at the same time. The fingers or ribs of the cradle were usually made of hickory.
Although the sickle was widely used during the Colonial Period, the scythe eventually made the sickle obsolete. The scythe permitted the farmer to cut a larger quantity of the crop than the sickle simply because of its larger size.
The cut crop, at this point called straw, would be bound into sheaves. The sheaves would then be loaded onto a wagon or cart and hauled into the barn where threshing would separate the grain from the straw.
The first crops to be grown in south-western Pennsylvania included, among the most prevalent, maize/corn, wheat, rye, flax and Irish potatoes. To a lesser degree, buckwheat, millet, oats, barley, hay, peas, tobacco and melons were raised.
All of the crops grown in Bedford County prior to mechanization required intensive hand processing. Ears of corn had to be picked by hand off of the stalks and then those cornstalks needed to be cut down with scythes. Root and tuber vegetables, including potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, rutabagas, turnips and beets needed to be dug out of the ground by hand. Leafy vegetables, such as lettuce, cabbage, mustard greens and collard greens, like the root vegetables, needed to be gathered by hand, the farmer and his family bending over or getting on their knees in order to reach and gather the edible part of the plant.
Farming and the inherent back-breaking labor that was demanded of the farmer and his family in harvesting their crops gave rise to a tight community of neighbors. In many towns throughout the county, at the same time, there might reside two or more shoemakers and maybe a couple blacksmiths. They worked in their own shops and would probably have thought it strange if anyone would even have suggested that they gather together in one or the other's shops to work communally. But neighboring farmers routinely gathered together at harvest time to help each other out. Similar to the present day when Amish farmers will gather at a neighbor's farm to rebuild a barn after a fire, during the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Centuries the neighboring menfolk would join together to harvest the crops. Meanwhile, the women would prepare a refreshing dinner to greet them when they finished. The same scene would be repeated a few days later at another farm. It was not until the introduction of self-powered combines in the 1930s, that neighboring farmers began to forego their communal harvesting activities.
Livestock or dairy farming basically involved the feeding, care of, harvesting (eggs and milk) and ultimate butchering of farm animals and fowl. Livestock farming presented, and still presents, the farmer with its own set of demands. Cows needed to be fed, milked and cleaned up after. Likewise sheep, pigs and chickens all needed to be cared for in their own ways. Sheep required being shorn every spring. Eggs needed to be gathered daily from the hen house.
Farming, especially dairy farming, was and still is, somewhat, a family business in which all the members of the family participated in some way. Although the father and older males might have done the heavy work of the farm, the women and younger children did their own share of what they could. Until the 1950s, when the schools were consolidated throughout the county, it was common for the children of farmers to end their schooling experience after completing the eighth grade. It was necessary for many children to leave school after the eighth grade because their help was needed at home on the farm.
The domestication of cattle, and their use as food occurred around 11,000 BC. Their use as a source of milk came about some four thousand years later. Anatolian farmers have been found to have used milk in the production of butter and cheese between 7,000 and 6,000 BC. The process spread elsewhere and arrived in Northern Europe and Britain between 4,000 and 3,000 BC.
Initially there was the discovery that certain of the animals that had been domesticated (e.g. cows, goats, horses and camels) produced milk that was safe for human consumption. Then there was the coincident discovery that various dairy products were produced in the way that milk was handled.
Early man discovered that shaking milk made it separate into cream and 'skimmed' milk. It was then noticed that the cream could be made into butter. It was also discovered in regions with a warm climate that if milk was left to sit in a container for just a few hours it would curdle. Early man did not realize that bacteria floating in the air might settle on the milk and that, in conjunction with the heat, would cause it to curdle: to cause curds to develop. Nor did they realize that the leathern container made from a cow's stomach, into which they poured milk, contained the natural enzyme called 'rennin' that naturally curdled the milk. They might not have understood the chemistry behind it; they just knew that the fine and coarse curds were produced naturally. As with butter, those early people noticed that if they strained off the coarse curds and pressed and squeezed them they could make cheese. It was only a short step from that point to the discovery that the addition of other ingredients, such as herbs, would give different flavors to the cheese. They noticed too that the fine curds developed into a product called yogurt.
In addition to the aforesaid dairy products, certain fermented drinks have been produced from milk for centuries. Koumis (variously, kumis or koumyss) is a slightly alcoholic beverage produced from fermented milk from mares. Herodotus noted, in the Fifth Century B.C. that the Scythians were producing the drink from mare's milk. It is produced at the present time in Russia, Mongolia and elsewhere throughout the Central Asia steppes.
In Bedford County, as throughout other regions, cows were milked by hand into the late-1800s. Children of farm families became familiar with a daily routine. If the cows were in the pasture, the first thing that needed to be done was to gather them in to the barn. If the barn accommodated it, there would be a number of individual stalls on the ground floor into which one or two cows would be directed. One by one, each cow would be approached for milking. They would be tied to a stanchion, an upright post to keep them still while being milked. The cow might be fed when it was milking time to keep her occupied. The person doing the milking would position a milking stool, a short three-legged stool, to one side of the animal. Milking from the side kept the milker from being in the line of fire from either the cow's back feet or her tail. A wooden or metal pail was positioned beneath the cow's udders to receive the milk.
The process of hand-milking started by grasping one of the cow's teats in the hand. One of two methods would be employed to produce a stream of milk. The first method was to squeeze the fingers, one after the other, starting nearest to the udder and progressing to the teat's tip. The second method, called 'stripping' was to squeeze the teat close to the udder between the thumb and the index finger, then to slide the hand downward to the tip. Both methods resulted in the milk that was trapped in the teats being expelled, or squirted, from the tip and into the waiting bucket. Because of the small amount of milk that was collected from each teat, the filling of a bucket took perhaps twenty minutes to a half hour. It was estimated that only ten or twelve cows could be milked in a day.
As soon as two buckets would be filled, the ropes of a shoulder yoke would be hooked on the buckets' handles and they would be carried to the house. The farm wife would pour a certain amount of the milk from the buckets into a number of bowls. Certain of the milk would be poured into milk crocks ~ ceramic jars with lids, and they would be taken to a spring house for cold storage.
The spring house was (usually) a small stone structure built over/around a natural spring. Spring water tends to be uniformly fifty-five degrees. The water, being naturally cold, flowed out of the spring, into the spring house and then out one end. A properly made spring house would have stepped ledges on either side of the stream of water. At least one or two of the ledges would be under the water level. The temperature of the water in the spring house refrigerated anything placed in it. The milk crocks were placed on a ledge so that the water reached just below their tops. Milk stored in the spring house would stay fresh for a few days.
Cows were usually milked twice a day. If a young child, of school age, was given the job of milking the cows, he or she would have to do it before heading off to school, and then again soon after getting home from school.
Dairy farming remained the same, with milking done by hand well into the early-1900s despite the fact that mechanical milking machines had been invented as early as 1851.
