CHAPTER XXII

AGRICULTURE, WITH A BRIEF MENTION OF OUR DOMESTIC ANIMALS

Gabriel Thomas, the first historian of our State, in his quaint volume published in 1698, in describing the productions, says, “Their sorts of grain are wheat, rye, peas, barley, buckwheat, rice, Indian corn, and beans, with great quantities of hemp and flax, as also several sorts of eating roots, such as turnips, potatoes,* carrots, parsnips, etc., all of which are produced yearly in greater quantities than in England, those roots being much larger and altogether as sweet, if not more delicious. Cucumbers, coshaws, artichokes, with many others; most sorts of saladings, besides what grows naturally wild in the country, and that in great plenty; also as mustard, rue, sage, mint, tansy, worm-wood, penny-royal, and most of the herbs and roots found in the gardens of England.”

The corn (wheat) harvest, the same author tells us, was ended before the middle of July, and in most years the yield was twenty and thirty bushels of wheat for every one sown. While another writer, in 1684, records that “the corn of this province, which the Indians use, increases four hundred for one. It is good for the health, put in milk or to make bread.” Gabriel Thomas states that there were several farmers, who at that time (prior to 1698) sowed yearly between seventy and eighty acres of wheat each, besides barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, and other crops, and that it was common to have two harvests in the year,  “the first of English wheat and the second of buck or French wheat.”

The labor of the men on the farm in early times was much more arduous than at the beginning of this century, and absolutely appalling when contrasted with that of the present day Thomas Cheyney, of Thornbury, in July, 1796** in describing the laborious manner of life at that time states that “every one that is able to do anything are as busy as nailers. I know mans me that are worth thousands of pounds that will mow, make hay, reap, and draw hay and grain into their barnes as steady as hirelings, and those that are able, if they do not work, are looked upon with kind of contempt. Here in the country they are slighted and are not company for anybody.”

The plow which was in use during the colonial period resembled in almost every respect those represented in the sculpture on the ruined temples of ancient Egypt, and like those, in most cases, were drawn by oxen. The entire implement was of wood, the mould-board a heavy block of the same material, which was sometimes covered with piece of iron or the skin of a gar-fish to assist it in shedding the earth. As a whole it was clumsy and defective, hence it is not to be wondered that many of the farms in Delaware County, about the middle of the last century, after the same crop from the same land had been raised for years without rotation, and without manure, were deemed so poor and exhausted that their owners sold them to any one who would buy, almost at any price, so that they might emigrate to Lancaster County and “the back woods,” where the unbroken mould was so rich that “if tickled with a hoe it yielded an abundant harvest.” One of the plows in common use towards the end of the last century is now owned in West Chester, Pa. The wooden mould-board, nearly three feet in length, shod with iron, is very heavy, but shallow; the beam is so low that in use it frequently became choked with grass, stubble, or manure, hence a boy had often to walk by it side all day long and clear it of the rubbish thus gathered.*** The English historians claim, and perhaps justly, that James Small, of Berwickshire, Scotland, in 1785, was the first to introduce the plow with a cast-iron mould-board and a wroughtiron share. That he so introduced these improvements may be true, but Townsend Ward and John F. Watson both state that previous to the date given “William Ashmead, of Germantown, made for himself a plow with a wrought-iron mould instead of the customary board. This great improvement was much admired by Gen. Lafayette, who purchased four of these plows for his estate,

La Grange. The improvement was soon adopted by another person, who made the mould-board of cast iron.”(4*) It was fortunate for Ashmead that he did not attempt to introduce his plow into general use, for many years afterwards Charles Newbold, of New Jersey, in the effort to have the agriculturists adopt a cast-iron plow he claimed to have invented, expended thirty thousand dollars in the attempt, and was at length compelled to abandon it, because the farmers were of the opinion that the cast iron poisoned the ground.

The harrow was early introduced, since Gabriel Thomas, in 1698, refers to that implement. “Their ground,” he states, “is harrowed with wooden tyned harrows, twice over in a place is sufficient.” And in colonial days, as was practiced until about the beginning of this century, the harvests were reaped by the sickle, all hands-men, women, and children laboring in the fields from sunrise to sunset, with a short interval at noon for rest. The wages then, as contrasted with those at present paid for such work, were very low, but a pint flask of whiskey was always given each hand in the morning. It was severe toil, the position in reaping requiring the bending over of the body, the right arm swinging the sickle, and the left gathering the bunches of grain, which were thrown into heaps and bound into sheaves. The custom previous to the Revolutionary war was for the reaper to take two corn rows, cutting through always in one direction, and then, with his sickle on his shoulder, binding the sheaves as he came back. Twenty-five or thirty dozen was an ordinary day’s work, but sometimes a rapid hand would reach forty dozen.

It is not surprising that redemption servants, many of whom had been reared in the cities of the old world, frequently ran away from their masters before the period of their indenture had expired, to avoid the incessant labor which farming then entailed upon them. Scythes were, of course, in use in our earliest annals, but it was not until the beginning of the present century that the cradle, with its many fingers, began to take the place of the sickle and the reaping-hook, and although there were men who predicted that it would never be brought into general use, as was the case in more recent times with the reaping-machine, it soon won its way to popular favor. Every man of middle age can recall, when the harvest was ready for reaping, how all the able-bodied men on the farm, together with several additional hands hired for the occasion, would take their stations, the man at the extreme right starting ahead of the one to his left, and the latter following in order until, with a swinging motion, all at the same time would cut a swath from five to six feet in width from one side of the field to the other, while frequent pauses would be made to sharpen the scythe, the stone for the purpose being carried in a leather girdle around the waist of the reaper. The sound made by the stone on the steel blade would be heard at considerable distance.

In early times, when the bundles were ready to be taken to the barn or stack they were loaded on sleds, and in that manner transported thither. Bishop (5*) informs us that in 1750 only the best farmers had carts on their farms, while the most of them used sleds both in summer and winter, a statement corroborated by William Worrall, of Ridley, who, speaking of the older manners about the middle of the last century, says “there were no carts, much less pleasure carriages. They hauled their grain on sleds to the stacks, where a temporary threshing floor was erected.” On these floors the grain was thrashed out by horses, which were driven in a circle, and after the heads were deemed to have been well cleared of the seed the straw was thrown to one side with forks and the grain swept up, ready for another lot of bundles to be unbound and submitted to a like process. In the barns, however, the thrashing was usually done with the flail, and on a still day the sound of the heavy thump of the oaken breaker on the floor, which acted like a drum, could be heard a long way off. In 1770, John Clayton, doubtless of this county, who had invented a machine for thrashing wheat, received from the colonial government the exclusive privilege of making and selling this machine within this province.(6*) This was sixteen years before the thrasher invented for the same purpose by Andrew Meikler, of Scotland, and the one still used in England, was patented. We have no description of Clayton’s invention nor of the manner in which it was received by the farmers, who at that time were loath to take hold of new ideas, believing that agriculture was so thoroughly understood that nothing, let it promise never so much in saving of time or labor, was worth investigation.

I have been unable to ascertain when the fan was first used to winnow cereals, but in the early days, in all probability, the grain was held in the hand, which was shaken as the contents were permitted to fall through the fingers, so that the breeze might blow the chaff away from the heavy seeds, which fell directly to the ground, in the same manner that many of the aborigines now employ to separate the grain from the chaff. It is known that previous to the Revolution fans were in use in Chester County, although the work was not performed as thoroughly as is now done by the modern machines.

In the old colonial days the woodland was brought into condition for tillage by girdling the trees, and two men could thus destroy the forest on twenty or thirty acres in one year. There was little underbrush, owing to the custom among the Indians, annually in the fall, of setting fire to the grass and leaves in the woods, so that “a cart or wain,” we are told by Gabriel Thomas,

     “may go through the middle of the woods between the trees without getting any damage.” The rich soil, exposed to the sun through the leafless branches of the dead trees, was prolific, and, as we learn from a writer in 1684, if an emigrant arrived in Pennsylvania in September, two men could easily prepare that fall land for corn sufficient to return “in the following harvest twenty quarters, which are a hundred and sixty bushels English measure, and this should not cause astonishment when it is considered that a bushel of wheat sown produces forty bushels at harvest.” Wheat, until after the Revolution, was seeded between the rows of corn at its last plowing in August, and the seed was chopped in around the hills with a hoe. During the war of independence the Hessian fly, which is said to have been brought to this country in the provender transported hither for the use of the mercenary soldiers, multiplied so rapidly that they destroyed the early sown wheat, and this circumstance changed the season of planting. Rye was grown largely, for it not only made a favorite whiskey and sold readily, but it supplied almost all the coffee used in the rural districts, and until manufactured goods did away with home spinning every farmer had a patch of flax sown on his place. Many old persons can remember how pretty the sight was when the blue blossom was on the flax and “the bloom was on the rye.” The apple- and peach-orchards in early days were always planted near the house, from the fruit of which the family distilled cider, apple-jack, and peach brandy, as well as kept barrels of the former fruit, while large quantities of apples and peaches were always dried for winter use.

When Governor Printz first came to this country, it is reported that the grass even in the woods grew to the height of two feet, but as that statement was made by an aged Swede, whose father came over with the Swedish Governor, to Professor Kalm, in 1748, it may be accepted with some grains of allowance. It has also been claimed that Col. Thomas Leiper, one of the most public-spirited men the State has ever had, introduced clover to the colony, a statement that will not bear investigation, for in 1709, Jonathan Dickinson, in a letter, speaks of buying red clover-seed, remarking that “the white clover already tinges the woods as a natural production.”(7*) The old system of husbanding, in vogue until threatened starvation compelled the farmers to change the ruinous plan, is set forth in a letter from Squire Thomas Cheyney, of Thornbury, written in 1796 to relatives in England.(8*) He says,

     “Our land is mostly good, but we have dropt our old method of farming. We used to break up our fields in May, cross or stir them in August, and sow them with wheat and rye in September. This was done once in three or four years in rotation in the intermediate spaces between them were pastured. The land would produce from twelve to twenty bushels per acre. This way was followed until the land run out, as we call it. We planted corn, sowed barley, oats, and flax, likewise buckwheat, in small portions of land allotted for that purpose, which took the greatest part of our dung to manure it; our meadows got some, and we had very little left for our Winter grain. We followed tills old way until we could scarcely raise our bread and seed.”

Dr. Smith records that as early as 1734 silk was made in the colony, the insects being fed on the native mulberry leaves. In 1770 an effort was made to arouse general interest in the culture, and to that end premiums were given to the person sending the greatest weight of cocoons to “a public filature established in Philadelphia.” In 1771 Chester County sent three hundred and thirty-five pounds, the following being the names of the contributors:

Mary Newlin, of Concord, died in 1790, in her one hundred and second year. She was born in Thornbury in 1688, and it is stated that she “remembered when her father and others deaded the timber and burned the leaves, and hoed in their wheat by hand, their being few horses and scarce a plow in the settlement.” (9*)

Goats we know were early sent to the Delaware River settlement, and we have reason to believe that other domestic animals were transported to New Sweden with the colonists. Horses are spoken of long before the coming of Penn. In 1679 the journal of Sluyter and Danckers mentions them as used for riding, and many other references to these animals occur in our early annals. Penn, when he came in 1682, brought with him “three blooded mares, a fine white ‘horse, not full blooded, and other, inferior animals, not for breeding, but for labor,” while in 1699, when he returned the second time, intending to remain in the province, he brought with him Tamerlane, a colt by Godolphi Barb, to whom the best horses in England trace their pedigree. But previous to Penn’s last coming we have the statement of Gabriel Thomas, that the “horses in Pennsylvania are very hardy, insomuch that being very hot with riding or otherwise, they are turned out into the woods at the same instant and yet receive no harm.” Robert Rodney, in a letter written in 1690,(10*) in speaking of the trade of the colony and the articles shipped to the West Indies, mentions horses, “of which we have very good,” and also states that “a good breeding mare” is sold for five pounds, in the currency of the province. In 1683 the Assembly had forbidden the exportation of horses or mares without permission, under a fine of ten pounds. Under the Duke’s law (1676) the owner of horses which were running at large, as was then the custom, was compelled to have a private brand or mark, and the town(ship) was required to have its brand to be burned on the horses owned by persons living within its boundary, while an officer was designated to register the age, color, and natural and artificial marks of the animal. A person buying or selling an unmarked horse was subject to a fine of ten pounds. In 1683 horses in the woods had so multiplied that an act was passed providing that no stallion under thirteen and a half bands should run at large, under a penalty of five pounds, and by act of May 10, 1699, the height was made thirteen hands, and a horse under that size could be taken up and impounded by any freeholder or ranger. While by the act of May 9, 1724, no stallion, unless thirteen hands high from the ground to the withers, reckoning four inches standard measure to one hand, and of a comely proportion, “was permitted to run at large in the woods.” During all our colonial history an officer, termed ranger, was appointed by the court to enforce the laws respecting domestic animals, and to impound those found roaming at large unmarked. The office continued until the beginning of this century, for at the January Court of Quarter Sessions, 1804, Joseph Neide, of the borough and township of Chester, was appointed ranger for the county of Delaware. In a letter written by Robert Park, from Chester township, Tenth month, 1725, to Mary Valentine, in Ireland, he desired that a saddle and bridle may be brought to him by his sister, who was about emigrating, and states, “Lett the tree be well Plated & Indifferent Narrow, for the horses here are Large as in Ireland, but the best racers and finest pacers in the World.” Horses were not shod until about the middle of the last century.

Rev. Israel Acrelius, in 1758, mentioned the fleet horses owned by the descendants of the Swedish settlers on the Delaware. The horses were then broken to pace, that being the favorite gait. It was a pacer which bore Squire Cheyney to Gen. Washington on the morning of Sept. 11, 1777, with the intelligence that the bulk of the British army had crossed the Brandywine at the upper ford, and it was a pacer which Jefferson made fast to the railing of the capitol at Washington while he went in and took the oath as President of the United States. In June, 1879, the residents of Chester and vicinity had an opportunity of seeing the pair of dappled-gray Arabian stallions which were presented to Gen. Grant by the Sultan of Turkey. By the personal request of Gen. Beale the animals were sent to this city, and the horses, whose pedigree could be traced more than a thousand years, were viewed while here by a large number of people.

In early days, and in fact until the first decade of this century, cattle, as before stated, ran wild in the woods. Capt. Heinricks, of the British army, in 1778, stated that “perhaps the reason why the domestic animals are not half so good as ours is because they are left out winter and summer in the open air.” Gabriel Thomas informs us in the infancy of the province some farmers had “forty, some sixty, and from that number to one or three hundred head of cattle; their oxen usually weigh two hundred pounds a quarter. They are commonly fatter of flesh and yield more tallow (by feeding only on grass) than the cattle in England.”

William Worrall stated that before the Revolution the natural meadows and woods were the only pasture for the cattle of Delaware County, “and the butchers from Philadelphia could come out and buy one, two, or three head of cattle from such of the graziers as could spare them, for the supply of the market.” To distinguish the cattle of one owner from those belonging to others, the early laws required every person to brand his cattle with his individual mark. Under the Duke of York all horned cattle were to be branded on their horns. After Penn acquired possession of the province the act of 1683 compelled owners to brand their cattle when six months old. In 1685 the time was extended to one year, and in 1690 the age of the stock when it must be branded, or deemed strays, was extended to eighteen months. These brands and marks were regularly entered on record on the docket of the Quarter Sessions. At a court held at Chester, Fifth month 1, 1684, we find “George Maris’s cattle mark. A slit on the tip of the near ear, his brand mark G.M.” On Sixth month 5, 1684, the record sets forth, “The ear mark of John Blunstone, of Darby, a crop in the near ear and a hole in the farr ear, his brand mark I.B.” On 3d day of 1st week, Fourth month, 1686, “John Hannum’s ear mark, a crop under slit of both ears, his brand I.H. on the near buttock.” While at court 3d day of 1st week, Seventh month, 1686, the record is made of “John Harding’s ear mark, a crop on the inside of ye far ear, his brand mark I.H. on the farr buttock.” That the cattle did not increase as rapidly as was desired at an early period we inferentially learn from the act of First month, 1683, which interdicted the killing of a cow, calf or ewe lamb for three years under a fine of five pounds, one-half of which was to go to the informer.

In 1876 the Delaware County American published the recollections of William Sheldon, of Upper Providence, respecting the price at which cows sold for forty years preceding that date. From it we learn that previous to and including 1835 good cows could be bought from $18 to $24, in 1836 for $20, in 1837 and 1838 for $23. In 1839 and 1840 the price advanced to $39, while the following year (1841) they fell to $19, and continued at those figures for 1841 and 1842. In 1845 the price was $23, in 1846, $25, and fluctuated between $22 and $25 during the next two years. In 1849-53 the average price was $26. In 1854 the price advanced two dollars, and in 1855 and 1856 it had advanced to $30. In 1857, $34, but in 1858 and 1859 it fell to $28. In 1861-62 the price was $35, and during the next three years $65 was the average, and since then the market has been high.

Sheep were early introduced, and we learn from Gabriel Thomas, that previous to 1698 of these useful animals there were “considerable numbers, which are generally free from these infectious diseases which are incident to these creatures in England, as the rot, scab, or maggots. They commonly bring forth two lambs at once, some twice in one year, and the wool is very fine and thick and is also very white.” Capt. Heinricks in 1778 records that “there are plenty of sheep, but as the farmer drives them into the woods he loses the wool; however, he sells the skin for 8s. York money.”

In the early times hogs were a very important part of the stock of the planters, for in most cases salted swine-flesh comprised the daily animal food Consumed during the winter months. Hence it is not surprising that attention was early had to laws protecting the owner in his property, particularly when the hogs were turned out in the woods to shift for themselves. They must have found abundant food, for we learn that hogs about a year old when killed weighed about two hundred pounds and the flesh was remarkably sweet, which, it was believed, was the result of the animals feeding on fruit which then abounded in a wild state.

Capt. Heinricks, a German officer, who saw almost nothing to praise in Pennsylvania, at least had a good word to say for the swine. “Hogs,” he writes, “are quite as good here as the best in Holstein, for there is a good mast for them in the woods, and they feed there the whole year.” Under the Duke of York’s laws, hogs were required to be branded, and the “theft of swine or other cattle” was punished for the first offense with a fine and the cropping of one ear. Under Penn, by the act of March 10, 1683, the party convicted of this offense was compelled to pay threefold the value of the hog stolen; for a second offense a like punishment and six months’ imprisonment, and for the third conviction a fine of twenty-nine lashes and banishment, never to return to the colony, under such penalty as the County Court saw proper to impose in its discretion. At the December court, 1687, the grand jury presented Ann Neales, widow, of Ridley, for keeping a dog which worried and killed her neighbors’ hogs, and also harboring an Indian boy named Ohato, who was detected in urging the dog to kill the hogs. The widow declared that the dog belonged to Peter Cox, but when the case was called she submitted to the court and “Putts herself upon ye mercy of ye King and Governor,” whereupon she was fined ten shillings and costs. The Indian boy was held in twenty pounds to be of good behavior, and Andrew Friend became his surety.

When the meadow-land in Chester borough began to be improved, swine running at large was found to be very objectionable, especially to those who were “Improving the Marshes and Ditches and Drains,” and to remedy the evil the Assembly in 1699 forbade unringed and unyoked hogs and goats from being at large in that town, and all such animals so taken up were forfeited to the county of Chester, while all damage done by hogs or goats owned by parties living outside the boundaries prescribed were to be made good to the party injured by the owner of the animal. The act designated the limits of Chester, to be southward by the Delaware River, westward by Chester Creek, northward by the King’s road, and eastward by Ridley Creek. The act of 1705 declared that no swine without rings or yokes should be permitted to run at large within fourteen miles of the navigable parts of the Delaware River, and that in the towns of Philadelphia, Chester, or Bristol they should not be allowed to run at large “whether yoked or ringed or not.” The fine imposed was to be equally divided between the government and the informer.

The ordinary domestic fowls seem to have been abundant in the province in the early time. Gabriel Thomas tells us that “chickens, hens, geese, ducks, turkeys, &c., are large and very plentiful all over the country,” and eighty years after this statement was made Capt. Heinricks records, “There are plenty of Guinea fowls, but not so many as in the Jerseys and Long Island. Turkeys belong to the wild animals, and are in the woods in flocks like partridges. Ducks and geese are common and as good as ours, but no better.”

* Watson records that potatoes “were very slow of reception among us. It was first introduced from Ireland in 1719 by a colony of Presbyterians settled at Londonderry, in New Hampshire.” (Annals of Philadelphia, vol. ii. p. 420.) The quotation from Thomas’ “History of Pennsylvania,” published in London, twenty-one years before the date, according to Watson, when potatoes were first introduced into the English American colonies, shows that the latter assertion is not correct. The latter statement of Watson (same volume, page 486-87), that potatoes during his mother’s childhood were little esteemed as food, may be literally true, as also the record he made of the remark of Col. A.J. Morris, that in the early days that vegetable was called Spanish potatoes, “and were very sharp and pungent to the throat and smell.” He (Col. Morris) said Tench Francis first imported our improved stock, which by frequent cultivation be much improved.

** Futhey and Cope’s “History of Chester County,” p. 337.

*** lb., p. 339.

(4*) “Germantown Road and its Associations,” Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. vi. p. 139; Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, vol. ii. p. 66.

(5*) Bishop’s “history of American Manufactures.”

(6*) Colonial Records, vol. ix. p. 698.

(7*) Watson’s Annals, vol. ii. p. 485.

(8*) Futhey and Cope’s “History of Chester County,” p. 339.

(9*) lb.

(10*) Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. vi. p. 312.

Source:  Page(s) 207-211, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, by Henry Graham Ashmead, Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co. 1884

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