Winter time activities on the farm included threshing, butchering, cutting wood, and manuring and clearing land. (There was always something to do!) Threshing was done by the flail, which knocked the grain out of the head and made lots of straw. Chaff and dirt had to be removed and this was done by tossing shovels full against the wind which blew the straw away while the grain fell. Finally, it might be passed through a woven sieve to remove the finer bits of trash and dirt.
The grains that were raised included wheat, corn, rye, barley, oats, spelt*, and buckwheat. Corn was primarily an animal food, but it was also useful for human consumption. It was more tolerant of the harvesting time as it could stand in field without damage. Wheat was often sold as it was the grain most in demand in the towns. Typically the farmer might sell the whole grain to the miller who made flour and sold this. The harvesting time of the smaller grains was more critical and was labor intensive.
If the price of wheat (flour) was high, the farmers tended to sell it and use rye for making bread for their own use. White bread was not common on the farm; heavier and darker breads were more common. Barley was used for making malt, which is used in making whisky and beer. Barley might even be used for bread. Oats were primarily for animal food for fattening cattle and horses.
In Virginia, the primary cash crop was tobacco. This was even more labor intensive than the grains. The seeds had to be planted in well prepared seed beds. (One thimble full would yield more tobacco plants than one family could care for.) Late in May the young plants were transplanted to the fields and watered when transplanted. Then one was at the mercy of the weather during the growing season which was relatively short, principally June, July, and part of August. Not only was the farmer dependent on the weather, he had to be on the alert for insects which might ravage the plants. If there was a bad case of caterpillars (Tobacco Worms, which are the larvae of the Hawk or Sphinx Moth) on the plants, the cure was to pick them off by hand and burn them. The plants were cut in August and dried. When they were dry, the leaves were stripped off and packed in barrels. (The business of being a cooper was good, as Virginia often sent 30,000 barrels of tobacco to England.)
What is amazing is that all of this was done with a minimum of tools. Some of the major hand tools were the axe, shovel, the crosscut saw, a drill, and perhaps chisels. From these, the farmer could clear the land make the things needed.
If they lacked what would seem to us to be essential elements, they found alternatives. When the first Germans settled at Schoharie in New York, they made plows from tree trunks where a limb grew. For motive power they gathered vines and connected these to the plow. Then the women pulled the plow.
[This is not a part of the note above but an explanation of why I will not on the net for several days. Two family events will take us in and out of home for about two weeks. So I can’t promise there will be any Notes during this time.]
(22 May 06)
[*SPELT--An ancient grain grown as long ago as 5000 B.C. For more information, go to the Spelt official website.]
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.