Continuing around the year with farmer-surveyor David Schultze, we pick up with April.
April 4: One and a half acres of oats sowed and by this time the pond cleaned.
April 7: Hauled some manure. Cleaned trees (?).
April 10: Sowed another half acre of flaxseed and two acres with oats.
April 14: Sowed one and three-quarters acres with oats.
April 18: Sold two cows. Seeded nine and one half acres with oats for ourselves.
April 19: Melchoir drove to Philadelphia. Returned on the 20th. Price of wheat was 4 (shillings) and 1 (pence)-30 bushels.
April 20: Two and three-quarters acres of oats sowed.
April 25: Fed the last turnips to the cows.
April 26: Sowed oats for the last time this year.
April 27, 28: Made fence and plowed.
May 1, 2: Plowed up about one and a half acres of old meadow.
May 2: Received a bee swarm already! Sheared sheep - 4 pounds of wood from four white sheep.
May 3, 4: Plowed the new land for buckwheat.
May 5: Fed the last oats straw.
May 7, 8, 9: Plowed for buckwheat.
May 9: Made rails and carried wood.
May 10: Began to plow in the field to the South.
May 18: Finished plowing.
[There is no explanation for a long break until the next date.]
June 22: Finished sowing buckwheat - more than five acres. Finished making hay - twelve little fields.
June 25: Cut 580 sheaves of grain.
June 30: Almost finished harvesting - 1240 sheaves. 1100 sheaves of grain in the barn [unthreshed] and 140 bundles of hay.
July 4, 5: Cut grain and bound 1680 sheaves.
July 10: Finished picking flax.
[We called it pulling flax when I was a boy].July 11: Began to mow oats.
July 12: Sold two sheep.
July 13: Bound 65 sheaves.
July 14: Bound 65 sheaves.
July 17, 18. Bound 113 sheaves. Till now, 370 sheaves.
July 21: Began the second plowing.
July 27: Hauled manure.
Gaps in the dates may be due to surveyor jobs. David Schultze was also a very respected individual in the community. There were major land disputes on which his testimony and opinions were solicited. Some of the work above may have been done by relatives and hired hands.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.