Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1885-08-05
Old-Time Farmers.

were simply farmers and nothing else.
They depended almost wholly on the
products of their farms for their living.
They raised nearly all the supplies for
their own tables, and largely for their
clothing, which was manufactured
from the raw material in their own
homes. Wheat was much more gener-
ally grown then than now, but not in
sufficient quantities to furnish bread
for the household. Flour was rarely
bought by the barrel, and barley, rye,
and Indian corn were extensively used.
In those earlier days fiour-bread was,
with large numbers of families, digni-
fed with the name of ''cake,' and con-
sidered luxury for use on extra oc-
casions, when company was enter
tanned. A story is still told in one of
our old Rockingham country towns,
which illustrates this fact. A high
toned gentleman known as the ''squire''
called at farmhouse one day on bust
ness, and when he had finished his er-
rand, and had remounted at the door,
the good housewife, wishing to impress
the squire with the dignity and thrift
of her family, said to him, esquire,
won't you stop and have some
flour bread and butter?" think
ing it now too late for him to accept
her invitation. To her chagrin the
doughty Squire replied, ''Thank you
marin, 1 don't care if l d." and
promptly dismounted and entered the
house. The p DOR woman could only
explain to her surprise she found the
flour bread all out, and offered him
the best she had, some Indian hammock.
When boy the writer has often seen
in the house of neighbor a string of
these bannocks, eight or ten in num-
Der, set up on tins in front of the fire in
the broad fireplace, there being room
left then in one cornor for him to sit
and look straight up the chimney into
the blue heavens. There was very
little market for farm produce in those
days except in the large towns, and
long journeys had to be made, mostly
to such as were known as ''seaports"
as there were no interior towns of
sufficient population to be centres of
much trade. Every farmer kept a
flock of sheep, and wool constituted a
large proportion of the clothing of the
family. 1t was carded, spun and woven
at home, and made into garments for
both sexes. The best clothes for the
men and boys were made of what was
called ''fulled cloth.' This was
made at home of the finest ma
terial, and taken to the mills known as
the "fulling Mills" where it was put
through process of thickening, dyeing
and finishing. The women used to
wear gowns of cloth which was called
''pressed woolen." This was simply
homemade flannel, taken to the mills
above named, and pressed, so as to
present a glossy surface.
Every farmer had small patch of
flax. This was pulled and spread out
in rows on the ground, 'rotted,,' and
then ''broken'' and ''swingled," and
was thus prepared for the combing,
carding, and the ''little wheel,' as the
machine was called on which the flax
was spun, to distinguish it from the
larger machine for spinning wool. 1t
was woven into cloth for table covers,
toweling, sheeting and shifting. The
"tow,' which was the coarse portion
combed out of the ''hetchel," was spun
into a coarse yarn, of which a cloth
was made for summer suits for the men
and boys. The tow shirt, so commonly
worn, was, when new, an instrument
of torture, to the wearer, as it was full
of prickling spines left from the woody
part of the stalk.