I have a clipping describing early Eighteenth-Century farming in Chester County, Pennsylvania, but, with adaptions, it seems to be appropriate for Virginia. The original tracts were mostly woodland and the average size of the first patents and grants were in the hundreds of acres. A man could clear about two acres of land a year. To do so, he would fell the trees and burn a lot of the wood, brush, and stumps. By the time a man died, he might have fifty acres cleared. Even this much land would be too much for one man to farm. The additional labor would be supplied by children and slaves.
The major crops were tobacco, corn, and the grains. The first was a cash crop, the second was a food, and the third was food and perhaps a cash crop. Some farmers were heavily into orchards, especially apples, which could be used in the raw, dried, or liquid forms. The first stage of the liquid was cider. Some people with stills turned the apple juice into hard liquors for use and sale.
Farming equipment was very primitive. Estate inventories lacked many of the implements which we take for granted. A primitive plow from wood could be used to scratch the ground. Harrows and drags, again from wood, would be used to break up some of the clods. The power for pulling the implements was usually done by oxen (cattle), and seldom by horses. Grain seeding was done by broadcasting by hand. The return at the end of the season was only a small multiple of the seed planted. Corn seed and tobacco plants were set out individually and throughout the growing season, cultivation was done by hoes to keep the weeds down and the soil loose.
The grain was usually cut with a sickle. Children, if available, would gather the loose grain into bundles and tie them together with more of the grain. These would be allowed to dry slightly in the field and then they would be taken into the barn for storage. Threshing did not occur until the winter time as there was not enough time in the summer and fall to do this. The flail, two pieces of wood which were loosely joined, was used to thresh the small grains. One part was a handle and the other was the part which struck the grain on the floor or ground. After the seed was knocked out of the head, everything would be gathered up and tossed into the air where the wind would blow the straw (chaff) away, while the grain fell back to the ground to be gathered up.
The harvesting of the grain in the summer was very labor intensive, requiring help from all of the members of the family. Even the smallest could help by providing liquids to the hard-working people. To take the grain to the barn, a sled could be used pulled by the oxen. Wagons were much scarcer than we would imagine.
After the land was cleared, nearly all of the farming could be done with wooden instruments. During the clearing of the land, the axe and the saw were very important.
(18 May 06)
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