Fertile soil was practically essential when one considers the crude implements with which the frontier farmer carried on his hazardous vocation. In addition to the crude wooden plow, which we have already mentioned, the agrarian pioneer of the West Branch possessed a long-bladed sickle, a homemade rake, a homemade hay fork, and a grain shovel.[25] All of these items were made of wood and were of the crudest sort.[26] As time went on, he added a few tools of his own invention, but these, and his sturdy curved-handled axe, constituted the essential instruments of the farmer's craft.
July was the month of harvest for the mainly "subsistence" farmers scattered along the West Branch. The uncertainties of the weather and the number of acres planted had some influence upon the harvesting, so that it was not unusual to see the wheat still swaying in the warm summer breezes in the last week of July. However, if possible, the grain was generally cut the first part of the month in order that buckwheat, or other fodder, might be sown and harvested in the fall.
Harvesttime was a cooperative enterprise and whole families joined in "bringing in the sheaves." The grain had to be cut and raked into piles, and the piles bundled into shocks tied together with stalks of the grain itself. This took "hands" and the frontier family was generally the only labor force available. In time, however, field work was confined to the men of the family among the Scotch-Irish, who attached social significance to the type of work done by their women.
Fithian's Journal reveals, however, that class-consciousness was not yet apparent in the division of labor on this frontier. On two occasions he describes daughters of leading families engaged in other than household tasks. Arriving at the home of Squire Fleming, with whom he was to stay for a week, Fithian notes on July 25, 1775, that Betsey Fleming, his host's daughter, "was milking."[27] The very next day, upon visiting the Squire's brother, who had "two fine Daughter's," this Presbyterian journalist found "One of them reaping."[28] If Leyburn's comment that social status among the Scotch-Irish depended in part upon the work done by the women of the family, then these examples attest to the fact that "status" was a luxury which the Fair Play settlers could not yet afford.[29]
Threshing was either done by hand with flails, or, if the family had a cow or two (and the tax lists indicate that they did), the grain was separated by driving the livestock around and around over the unbundled straw. Finally, the chaff was removed by throwing the grain into the air while the breeze was flowing. The grain was then collected and readied for milling.
Gristmills were available in the West Branch Valley almost from the outset of settlement due to the many fine streams which flowed through the territory. As a result, few farmers had to travel more than five miles, generally on horseback, to carry their bags of grain to the mill. If the farmer had no horse, he had to carry his sack of grain on his shoulder. If the settler lived on or near a stream, he put his sacks of grain in a canoe and paddled downstream to the nearest mill. In the early days before the mills, the grain was pounded into meal by using a heavy pestle and a hollowed-out stump, a crude mortar which served the purpose.
In time, the gristmill owners also operated distilleries, converting the pioneer's wheat, rye, and barley into spirited beverages which were freely imbibed along this and other frontiers. By the time of the Revolution, distilling was so common as to cause the Committee of Safety to take action to conserve the grain.[30] "Home brew," however, was quite the custom, and it was not long before most farmers operated their own stills.
Self-sufficiency was both a characteristic and a necessity among these Scotch-Irish, English, and German settlers of central Pennsylvania. Bringing their agrarian traditions with them from the "old country," where they had operated small farms, they were bound to a "subsistence farming" existence by the inaccessibility of markets to the frontier. One diarist found this conducive to a "perfect Independence" which made a "Market to them, almost unnecessary."[31] This economic independence carried over into frontier manufacturing, if it can be called that, because the industry, except for the gristmills and their distilleries, was strictly domestic.