History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 20

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 20

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In reference to the treea in Pennsylvania, Acrelius continues, " White- oak growe in good seil; light bark, the leaves long, grasa-green, blunt- pointed; the acorn is small, long, with a short cup; the wood white; is used for ship-timber, plaoks, staves fer hogeheads or wine-pipes for spirituens liquore, but not fer molasses. There is a heavy exportatien of it to Europe, Ireland, France, and the West Indies in the form of beards and staves. It is also used fer pests, with beards and clap-hoards, around fields and gardens. It hurts well, and makes good ashes. White-oak growing upon low lund and in swamps is considered mere reliable for ship-building than that which is found upon high ground. Black-onk grows upon any kind of soil ; bark dark ; leaf dark green, very blunt-pointed; the acern large, with short cup; the weed, when split green, is of a reddish-brewa coler, when dry, darker. It is used for staves ef melasses-hogsheads or barrels for dry-goede, such as wheat- flour, sugar, Muscovado, also for piles er palings built in water, but rets on land within three or four years; does not burn well, hut disselves intosineke and poor ashes. The bark is used in tanning. Spanish eak also grewa everywhere; bark gray ; leaf small, sharp-peinted, and light green ; the acorns, which are gall-nute, are serviceahle fer ink; the wood whitish, with spots like the beech-tree, is used as black-oak, and is considered better; the hark is the best fer tanning, and yields a yel- lowish coler. There are several speciesof Spanish pak, which are dis- tinguished by their leaves, but are the same for fuel, bark, and use. Red-oak usually grows upon low land; hark gray ; leaf broad, pointed, with saw-like teeth towards the stalk ; the wood, when fresh, reddish, when dry, whitish ; is used as black and Spanish oak. Black, Spanish, and red-oake are perous and loose in structure, se that if one takes a piece of their wood three feet long, weta the one end and blows into the other, bubbles come out. All these species are usually spoken of uader the name of black- or red-oak. Few natives of the country know how to distinguish them all correctly. Swamp-eak, water-oak, peach-leaf oak, live-onk grow in swampy places; not commion; high trees; bark dark gray ; lenf long as the fingers, narrow, with one point; wood grny, but the hardest of all oak ; is seldom used for anything but cog-stecks in cider-mille. Walnut-tree, black-walnut, grows in dry ground; bark dark gray ; the leaf ia paire en a stalk ; a high tree ; the nute black, large as apples, rough and sharp on the outside, covered with a thick green skin; the shell hard eueugh to break with a hammer, the kernel very oily, fit for oil for fine paintings; the wood brown, and quite firm when the tree grows in free air and good seil, also valuable, but insignificant and of little value when it is surrounded by thick and closo woeds. It is used for furniture of houses,-tables, chairs, burenus, etc. Boards of it are exported in large quantities. Hickory grows in a rich soil ; the leaves arranged in pairs along the branches, with teeth ser- rated at the edges; the nuts white, flat, pointed, large as the culti- vated walnuts ; grows within a thick green hull, which, when ripened in the month of October, opens itself in four clefts, and pushes out the nut; has a division within, as a walnut, but is hard as a bone. The kernel has a pleasant taste, and frem it the Indians, as it is said, press an oil for winter use. The wood is tough, white on the outside, browa in

THE FIRST SWEDISH SETTLEMENTS.

the heart ; that of young trees is used for hoops, that of old ones for ag- ricultural implements and wagons, but chiefly for fuel, and makes the best fires, with the finest ashes. Chestnut-tree grows in dry soil, high, straight, and thick ; the bark ash-gray ; the leaf oblong, pointed, with serrated teeth at the points ; the shell double, the outer one large as an apple, externally like a burdock-burr, internally with a woolly down ; when ripe, naturally opens itself in four clefts and throws out the nut, of which there are usually two, round upon one side and flat upon the other. If three grow together they are mostly poor, and the middle uut is flat on both sides, the other two of the ordinary shape. Some- times seven nuts are found together, then none of them are good. The chestnut-tree, surrounded by thick woods, bears neither large nor numerous nuts; but where they are found in abundance the swine have au excellent food. The wood is ash-gray, is used for posts or rails, but for nothing else except fuel. Poplar grows indiscriminately, higlı, straight, and rich in foliage ; bark of a greenish gray, the seed in pods, the leaf broad, single, scalloped ; the wood yellowish, brittle, but hard; used in carpenters' work for door- and window-frames, also for boards. It is cut out for canoes, is turned for wooden vessels, such as pails, dishes, boxes, and the like. Sassafras grows in rich soil ; low trees and bushes. The bark is dark-green, smooth, with & yellow juice; tlio leaves unlike, even on the same tree, oblong, with one, two, or three stumpy points; the woud yellowish, especially the root, which, as well as the bark, has the smell and taste of saffron. It is used for planks and gate-posts, also for palings on the Susquehanna. Cedar grows chiefly in swamps or low, sandy ground; in smell and bark like the juniper-tree. Its needle-shaped leaves ars long and tender. Red- cedar is dark-red, hard ; used for planks and posts, and in New England for cabinet-work, on the Bermuda isles for ship-timber. White-cedar is a soft wood ; used for house-timber,-boards, palings, and shingles. Maple grows ia dry ground, high and straight; the bark a gray-green; the leaf small, three-pointed, serrated at the points; the wood whitish, spotted ; used for furniture in houses,-tables, chairs, etc. ; is exported from the country in the form of boards. Sweet-gum grows in low lands; the bark gray, smooth ; the leaves five-pointed, with serrated edges; the wood yellowish, spotted, warps easily when wrought ; used for furniture and cabinet-work. Sour-gum grows everywhere; the bark dark, sharp; the leaf oblong, one-poiated ; the wood white, cross-grained, does not admit of any splitting, and is used for wheel-naves or hubs. Locust grows in dry, rich soil as a high tree; the bark greenish ; this ssed in long pods; tho kernel large, sweet, edible ; the leaf upon a long stalk ; the leaves long, ane-pointed, in pairs, like the mountain-ash; the wood bright, hard, used for pegs ia ship-building, for trundles and cogs in mills. The streets in New York ars planted with locusts. Dogwood grows in dry ground, seldom more than four inches in diameter ; the flowers white ; the berries red and small; the wood yellowish, hard, like boxwood, does not burn well; it is used for little else than carpenters' tools. Wild cherry grows in good land, not high, but thick ; the bark and leaf like those of the cultivated cherry-tree, but the berry smaller, swester, with seed and no kernel; the wood reddish, is used for cabinet- work. Persimmon grows in good, dry ground, scarcely more than a foot thick; the hark rough and sharp; tho leaf single, oblong, one-poiated, dark green; the berry like the wild plum ; when frosted it is used for brewing table beer. The fruit and its seed are pounded together, kneaded up with wheat-bran, baked in large loaves in a stove; pieces of it are then taken at pleasure, sad from these the drink is brewed, which becomes quite palatable. The wood is whits, hard, and used for carpen- ters' tools. The button-tree grows wild, but is planted before the doors of hanses; the bark greenish-gray, smooth ; the seed-pods round and large as marbles, hang upon long stems, which when ripe, and one strikes them, all at once separate into small pieces, as if one were to throw & handful of down into the air; the leaf is quite large, broad, single, five-cornered, sharp-pointed ; the wood is brittle; its greatest use is for shading houses from the great heat of the sun. Spicewood grows in dry and sandy soil as a bush ; the flowers yellow ; the berry red, small, mostly single upon the stalks ; the leaves are oblong and one-pointed; the bark is green, has the taste of cinnamon when it is chewed, would probably serve as a medicine. Pins is planted near houses as an orna- meut; boards of it are introduced from other places, where it grows in & poor, sandy soil. Beech, hazel, aad birch are rare. Alder is found abuD- dantly in the marshes."

Israel Acrelius and his translator, William M. Reynolds, D.D., have left a vivid picture of these early pioneers. It is at once quaint, truthful, and life-like, and seems to carry us back among the

rugged farmers who laid the foundations for that frugality and wealth of agricultural products that has always characterized the husbandmen of Eastern Pennsylvania. "The farms which were first culti- tivated," Aerelius writes, "have by constant use be- come impoverished, so that they are now considered of but little value. The people cleared the land, which was new and strong, but did not think of manuring and elearing meadows until of later years. For those who do not keep their animals in stables have no other manure than this, that they place a few hay-stacks on a field, on which the animals are fed during the winter, when they trample as much under their feet as they eat, whereby the manure be- comes alike unequal and insufficient. That Pennsyl- vania is regarded as the best grain country in America arises more from the excellence of the climate than the fertility of the soil. Yet most of the farms are newly cleared. Some miles up in the country but few places are to be seen where the stumps do not still stand thiek upon the ground. Not one-half of the forests are cleared off as they ought to he. The clearing is not made by the destructive burning of trees, whereby the fertile soil is converted into ashes and carried away by the winds. Some stocks or stumps may be thus burned, so as to put them almost entirely out of the way. As labor is very high, so sometimes only the bushes and undergrowth are re- moved, but the large trees are still left standing. But around these a score is cut, and they thus dry np within the first year, and thus soon fall down, so that one may often see the fields with dry trees and a heavy crop of grain growing under them.

"The implements of agriculture are the plow and the harrow. The plow is so made that from the share two pieces ascend with a handle upon each, about an ell and a half apart from each other. It is put to- gether with screws, light and easy to handle. The plowman holds each handle with one hand, and throws up the field into high 'lands,' plowing first on the one side and then on the other side of a 'land,' so that the earth is thrown up high. Im- mediately before the plow a pair of oxen draw, or a. pair of horses, which are guided by some little boy either leading or riding on them. The harrow is three-cornered and heavy. The traces are fastened to it with a link, which makes a convenience in turn- ing a pair of horses before the harrow, and a boy on the horse's back smooths the field into fiue and even pieces without any great trouble. Sometimes two harrows are fastened together after the same team. The beam of the plow does not come forward between the draught animals. Under the end of the beam is a strong clam with a link, ou which is fastened a double-tree back of both the animals. At each end of this double-tree is another shorter one (single- tree), provided with a link for each animal. From these single-trees there go upon both sides of the draught animals ropes or chains forward to the hames,

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

which are held together by a broad strap above and below. In place of ropes or chains, most farmers use straps of raw deerskins twined and twisted together and so dried, which do not chafe the sides of the horses. Out of these also the whole of the harness is made.

. " Flax is sown in the beginning of March. The ground is plowed for it some days before, and new or good ground is required. It is pulled in July and much used. Oats are sown at the same time, mostly on good ground, which is plowed some days before; but if the plowing is done in the autumn before, in November or December, and then again just before the sowing, the oats themselves pay for it, according to the common saying. It is cut in July. It is used a great deal, but only for horses, and is of the thin and white kind. Wheat is the land's chief product. It is sown in the beginning of September, after three plowings preceding, the first in May, then in July, and the last just before the sowing, but always accord- ing to the moisture and quality of the soil. As the autumn is long and warm, the sprouts grow so long that all kinds of cattle are fed on them during the winter. Strong ground is not required for wheat, the middling is good enough. Harvesting is performed in July, in the hottest season. Sickles are used, with the edge sharpened like a file. The stalk is cut just about half its length, so that the stubble is quite high. The sheaves, short and small, are counted in dozens, and a bushel is expected from each dozen. Rye is sown in November, mostly upon some field that has borne a crop during the same summer, and one plow- ing is usually regarded as sufficient. If the shoots only come up before winter there is hope of a good harvest. Where the sowing is made early there is a supply for pasturage during the winter. It is cut at the same time and in the same manner as wheat. Buckwheat is sown at the end of July. For this is taken some ground which has just before borne rye or wheat. Poor ground and one plowing does very well for it. It ripens in October, and is mostly used for horses and swine. Turnips are not in general use. The seed is sown in the beginning of August. For this is taken either a piece of newly-cleared land or swamp. Those who have neither of these prefer let- ting it alone. The leaves are often exposed to the ravages of small flies, which destroy the whole crop. Maize is planted at the end of April or the beginning of May. Four furrows are placed close to one another, and then five or six steps from these four other fur- rows, and so over the whole field. The plowing is done in the month of March. For the planting is used a broad hoe, wherewith the earth is opened to the depth of three or four inchies, into which are cast five grains of corn, which are then covered with the hoe. Some- times also they add two Turkish beans, which thrive very well with the maize and run up its stalks. Each place thius planted is called a hill. An equal distance is kept between each hill, so that the rows may be 1

straight either lengthwise or crosswise. As soon as the young plant comes up it is plowed over, and even harrowed, that it may be free of weeds. When the plants are half an eil high the ground is hoed up around them, and again when they are two ells high. In the month of September, when the maize has at- tained its greatest growth, although not ripe, the strongest blades are cut off for fodder. They then plow between the rows of corn, sow wheat, and har- row it in, and this, in the next year, gives a full erop. By the end of October the ears are ripe, pulled off on the field, and carried home. The stocks and roots are torn up during the winter, when the ground is loose, to make the fields clean. Maize is the princi- pal food of the Indians, and it has hence been called ' Indian corn.'

" Potatoes are quite common, of two kinds, the Irish and the Maryland. The Irish are also of two kinds, the first round, knotty, whitish, mealy, somewhat porous. They are planted thus : upon a smooth and hard ground a bed of dung is formed ; portions of this are thrown upon the potatoes, which are then covered with ground of even the poorest kind. When the stalks have come up about a fourth of an ell high they are again hilled up with the same kind of earth, in order to strengthen the roots, which are thus con- siderably increased in number. The other kind is long, branching, thick, reddish, juicy, and more porous. For these a long ditch, the depth of a spade, is dug, the bottom of which is covered with manure, set with pieces of potatoes, and covered over with earth. When the stalks come up they are treated as those above mentioned. Maryland potatoes are long, thick, juicy, sweet, and yellow; they are planted from sprouts in hills or round heaps of good earth ; when the stalks come up they are hoed around. These are also wonderfully prolific, so that every- where around and between the hills the fruit is dug up.

"Cabbage is planted two or three times a year, but seldom thrives well until towards autumn. Crisped colewart stands through the whole winter. On cab- bage stocks which stand through the winter new leaves come out in the spring, which are used for greens. Tobacco is planted in almost every garden, but not more than for domestic use. It is universal among the Indians. When the leaves are ripe they are cut, cured, and twined together like twists of flax, and are used without any further preparation by the country people for chewing and smoking. The trade in tobacco is permitted only for Maryland and Vir- ginia, although its importation is almost yearly di- minished, as its production is increased in Europe.

" Vegetable gardens are kept for almost every house. There are generally cultivated beets, parsnips, onions, parsley, radishes, Turkish beans, large beans, pepper-grass, red peppers, lettuce, head-lettuce, Ger- man lettuce, and scurvy-grass; anything else is re- garded as a rarity. Common herbs for domestic

THE FIRST SWEDISH SETTLEMENTS.

remedies are wormwood, rue, sage, thyme, chamomile, etc. Peas are also growu in gardens, as they can be eaten while still green. When dry, a worm grows in them, which comes out a fly in spring. And al- though the pea theu seems destroyed, yet it still serves as seed for a new growth. That sort is like field peas. Sugar peas are also used, and are free from that evil. Orchards may be regarded as among the highest ad- vantages of the country, but the fruit consists mostly of three sorts,-cherries, peaches, and apples. Pears are rare. Cherry-trees are generally planted here and there around houses and roads, away from the gardens. The berries are generally of the common kind, bright and sour; some black and more juicy. The hetter sorts are rare, and lately introduced. They bloom in April and ripen in June. Peach-trees stand within an inclosure by themselves, grow even in the stouiest places without culture. The fruit is the most delightful that the mouth can taste, and is often allow- able in fevers. One kind, called clingstones, are con- sidered the best ; in these the stones are not loose from the fruit as in the others. Many have peach-orchards

chiefly for the purpose of feeding their swine, which are not allowed to run at large. They first bloom in March, the flowers coming out before the leaves, and are often injured by the frosts; they are ripe to- wards the close of August. This fruit is regarded as indigenous, like maize and tobacco, for as far as any Indians have been seen iu the interior of the country these plants are found to extend. Apple-trees make the finest orchards, planted in straight rows with in- tervals of twelve or fifteen paces. The best kind is called the Van der Veer, as a Hollander of that name introduced it ; it serves either for cider or apple brandy. Another sort is the house-apple, which is good for winter fruit. For apple-orchards not less than two or three acres are takeu ; some have five or six. The cultivation consists in grafting and pruning in the spring, and plowing the ground every five or six years, when either maize is planted or rye or oats sowed in the orchard."

In reference to stock-raising, Acrelius continues : "The horses are real ponies, and are seldom found over sixteen hands high. He who has a good riding- horse never employs him for draught, which is also the less necessary, as journeys are for the most part made on horseback. It must be the result of this more than of any particular breed in the horses that the country excels in fast horses, so that horse-races are often made for very high stakes. A good horse will go more than a Swedish mile (six and three- quarters English miles) in an hour, and is not to be bought for less than six hundred dollars copper coin- age. The cattle are also of a middling sort, but whence they were first introduced no one can well tell. Where the pasture is fair a cow does not give less than two quarts of milk at a time, that is twice a day. The calf is not taken from the cow until it is four weeks old,-that is, as long as she can keep it

fat,-iu case it is to be slaughtered, otherwise two or three weeks are regarded as sufficient ; and as animals are not kept in the house during winter, so it some- times happens that calves are sometimes caught in the snow, and are none the worse for it; there is no such thing heard of here as calves dying.

"The sheep are of the large English sort. They are washed whenever convenient, and then immedi- ately shorn, once a year, towards the end of April; their wool is regarded as better for stockings than the English. The flesh is generally very strong in its taste, especially in old sheep; some persons are un- able to eat it. When the Christians first came to the country the grass was up to the flanks of the animals, and was good for pasture and hay-making, but as soon as the country has been settled the grass has died out from the roots, so that scarcely anything but black earth is left in the forests ; back in the country, where the people have not yet settled, the same grass is found, and is called wild rye. The pasture in the forests, therefore, consists mostly of leaves, but also of the grass which grows along water-courses. Until pasture comes in the stubble-fields and meadows, the best is in the orchards. Early in the spring there springs up a strong grass-leek (wild garlic), especially on poor ground, which makes the milk and butter unpleasant to the taste, but afterwards the fields are covered with clover, red and white, and make excel- lent pasture. Some sow clover-seed after they have harrowed in their wheat, to make the crop stronger. Back in the country, where horses and cattle are pas- tured in the wild woods, they become wild, and so live in great numbers.

"The clearing for meadows has advanced very slowly, as there was so much new land suitable for cultivation. Upland pastures are scarcely advanta- geous unless they are frequently plowed, manured, sown with good grass-seed along with other seed, and also irrigated. They conduct the water from streams and ditches, so far as it is possible to do this with dams, to irrigate the meadows when the drought increases, which must be done in the night-time, when the air is cool. Along the Delaware River and the streams which fall into it there are large tracts of swamp, which within the last fifteen years, to the extent of many thousand acres, have been improved into good meadows, but at a very great expense. The mode of procedure is to inclose a certain amount of swamp with a bank thrown up quite high, so as to keep out the water (the ebb and the flood) or tides. The bank commonly rises as high as five feet, some- times ten feet. Also to make a ditch to carry off the water which comes on it from the land, and at the same time to place draius in the bank to let the water out; and then, again, by a gate upon the drains, to prevent it from running. When dry the earth is plowed, some kind of grain is sown in it, and then it is afterwards sown with clover and other English hay-seeds. When people saw the success of such

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

work, their minds were so taken with it that in the year 1751 the price of an acre of swamp-meadow advanced to six hundred dollars copper coin. But just at the same time it also happened that some high tides came up from the sea and swept away the em- bankments. Numerous muskrats live in these em- bankments and make them leaky, also a kind of crabs, called ' fiddlers,' dig into them, and make the banks like a sieve. Then the ditches were found not to be rightly built so as to answer their purpose. Thus the grass and grain were destroyed, the land returning again to its wild nature, and there was no end of patching and mending. Then the price of the land fell to half its value, and he thought him- self best off who had none of it. Again, in 1755, there came a great drought ; no grass nor pasture was to be found, and as no other plan could be devised, then the price of these lands rose again. The con- clusion was that swamp land as well as high land has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. Experi- ence has taught that upland earth improves the swamp land, and swamp land the upland; also that the vermin flee from the embankments when upland earth is found in them.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 20

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534