Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1903-10-08

legislation to the establishment of the bene-
ticent policy of peaceful arbitration for the
settlement of all disputes. If all the boys
are to become traffickers, lawyers, doctors
and parsons, who are to stand behind the
plows and hoes to produce the needed sup
plies to feed the hungry millions?
In those times there was only here and
there field of wheat grown in Gloucester
county. Rye was the staple grain for
bread. 1t was sown in September among
the corn, then near to ripening, and gen.
orally it was put into the ground very
shallow with the pillow, so that the field
was left in ridges about five feet in width
after the corn stalks were taken off in tie
fall. The next July saw field of waving
grain ready for harvesting. Then on an
appointed day twenty, thirty or forty hands,
according to the area to be gone over, came,
each armed with a sickle. The leader set
in, cut as much of the rye as he could hold
in his hand-grip, which he laid down be-
hind him, and so kept on to the end of the
ridge, the other hands following him
abreast to the right, cutting and laying
down their grips in the same manner.
When they got to the end of their ridges,
they hung their sickles on their shoulders,
turned about, took up their grips and
bound them into sheaves. Boys followed,
carried the sheaves into heaps of dozen
each, and one man set them into neat COM
pact shocks and generally, by about three
o'clock in the afternoon, the whole field
was clearly reaped and standing in shocks
received about seventy five cents for his
days work-a half-hand one-half the pay
The bill of fare in the farm house on that
day fo' breakfast and supper was of the
best-no stint of anything that could be
cooked or baked-roasts, stews buildings
and pies EVERYBODY was jolly, aud jokes
and songs went round. Oftentimes the
merry making was prolonged into the night
with fddling and dancing. Such was an
old-time rye harvesting in Gloucester Co.
With the passing of the rye harvests
passed the rye Loaf, for the making of which
the Gloucester County housewives were far
famed. A slice from one of those ira
ditional loaves, baked in an old fashioned
brick oven, with its usual accompaniment
of golden butter and creamery cheese, was
a I,,xurv, not 70 no forco4+a,,
Often in my declining years with these
sweet rural memories of the old hay max
ings and harvestings running through my
mind, like the harmonies of 'lost chords, "
and bringing back for the time the vigor of
my departed youth, I take down the
scythe from the limb of the shadowing
maple by the well house, for I still keep
one of these time-honored implements and
love and cherish it for it's associations, as
hangs on his wall at home My moving
days have not yet quite passed as | enter
my eightieth year. Though I cannot
swing the good scythe all day long as /
used to do in the harvestings, my arms
have nos quite forgotten their cunning. AS
take the "whet stone' the first clear ring
of it on the blade is like a startling drum
beat, an enchanting talisman to summon
up before me great array of fields and
meadows and rural homes with everywhere
the remembered hum and busy scenes of
the old haying and harvesting armies Of
the old New Jersey neighborhoods; acres
and acres of clover and rye and wheat,
mowers and swaths and wind-rows and
wagons creaking with their burdens for the
barns; and then the fields of tasseling corn
and then the orchards of ripening apples
and peaches by the snug farm houses, and
pastures dotted with herds and flocks, all
betokening thrift, plenty and comfort. All
how vivid they appear to me and how they
serve to assure me cverytime that the farm
ers' calling is the most important one going,
antedating as it does all the others of the
world Those old time implements, the
scythe, the cradle and the sickle, the very
mention Of them brings to me associations
industrial and social which I delight to re-
member. They are to me as are the old
tunes, which so many discard for the new
ones, many of which are hut airy nothings
to be soon forgotten. Old fogy and ancient
they may call me, but when they were
welded on the farms, were the golden days
Of farming in New jersey. Since then no
years of the new tangled" processes have
brought to the good old commonwealth
ampler yields of corn, more plentiful sup
plies Of clover and timothy hay and market
supplies, no finer beef and pork, butter and
cheese, no richer fruitings Of orchards, both
Of apples and peaches and surely no water
melons and cantaloupes now equal those
which then went from the prolific New
Jersey patches to the Philadelphia market.