The Pilgrim Story / Being largely a compilation from the documents of Governor Bradford and Governor Winslow, severally and in collaboration; together with a list of Mayflower passengers.

by William Franklin Atwood

Preparations for Winter

The harvest season drawing near, attention was given to gathering their crops and to putting their houses in readiness for the approaching winter. While some were thus engaged others were employed in fishing and their store of cod, bass and other fish seems to have been plentiful, for “‘every family had their portion.’” Of water-fowl, wild turkeys and venison, there seems, at this time, to have been an abundance. They had a peck of meal a week to a person, also Indian corn in like proportion of which they had planted some twenty acres with six acres of barley and peas.