CHAPTER IV
Colonial period
THE INCEPTION of the white man's agriculture in this country was a matter of pure imitation. Smith and his company at Jamestown were "gentlemen" who knew nothing about the cultivation of the soil, and took their first lessons from a couple of Indians that they held as prisoners. The "Pilgrim fathers" also were not originally farmers, and their cultural methods were derived from a study and imitation of the red man. Naturally, since they possessed iron spades and hoes, their labor was more efficient; yet for many years the settlers went upon the land with a farming outfit so meager that the man, accustomed to modern agriculture and its perfected machinery, is apt to gasp with astonishment and wonder how in hell they kept from starving when he learns how small it was.
Here is the list of tools supplied a Virginia settler with six persons in his family: :
- Agricultural tools—5 broad hoes, 5 narrow hoes, 3 shovels, 2 spades, 2 hand bills, 2 pick axes or mattocks.
- Clearing tools—5 felling axes.
- House and domestic tools—2 broad axes, 2 hatchets, 2 steel saws, 2 hand saws, 1 whip saw, 2 ham-
