David Schultz, a farmer in Pennsylvania in 1750, kept a diary of his daily activities. Here are some of the highlights of the year by month.
January: threshed grain, made a log sled, winnowed grain, manured the stables, cleared forest land, finished threshing wheat (and got 87 bushels in all), butchered a calf, hemp plucked, carried firewood, cut wood, nailed clapboards on, and butchered the old sow.
February: manured the stables, finished threshing grain, butchered a calf, oats threshed, manured the stables, cleansed the oats, threshed grain.
March: threshed oats, cleansed 16 bushels of oats for seed, made rails, wood carried, cut more rails, cleaned the stables, made rails, kitchen garden fence repaired [to keep the animals out], plucked the hemp, made rails, sowed 100 perches with flaxseed, sowed two more quarters with flaxseed.
April: 1 ½ acres of oats sowed, cleaned the pond, hauled manure, cleared trees, sowed another ½ acre with flaxseed and 2 acres with oats, sold two cows, seeded 9 ½ acres with oats for ourselves, Melchoir drove to Philadelphia and sold 30 bushels of wheat at 4/1 [four shillings and one pence per bushel?], sowed 2 3/4 acres of oats, fed the last turnips to the cows, sowed oats for the last time this year, made fence, plowed.
May: plowed up about 1 ½ acres of old meadow, received a bee swarm, sheared sheep (14 pounds of wool from four sheep), plowed the new land for buckwheat, fed the last oat straw, plowed for buckwheat, made rails and carried wood, began to plow the field to the south, (eight days later) finished plowing.
June: finished sowing buckwheat (more than five acres), finished making hay (12 little fields), cut 580 sheaves of grain. By the end of June had harvested 1240 sheaves [presumably winter grains] with 1100 sheaves in the barn along with 140 bundles of hay.
In addition to these farming duties, David Schultz was also a surveyor. Some of the farm tasks may have been done by hired labor or by sons.
(23 May 06)
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.