In this fashion, the frontier cabin was raised and covered in a single day, without a mason, without a pound of iron, and with nothing but dirt for flooring. The doors and windows were subsequently cut out of the structure to suit the tastes of its occupants.
In this one-room cabin lived the frontier settler and his family, who might be joined by guests. Small wonder, then, that additions to this construction took on such significance that they were items of mention in later wills.[22]
Once having cleared a reasonable portion of his property, raised his cabin, and scratched out an existence for his first few months of occupation, the pioneer was now ready to get down to the business of farming. Working around the stumps which cluttered his improvement, the frontier farmer planted his main crops, which were, of course, the food grains--wheat, rye, with oats, barley, and corn, and buckwheat and corn for the livestock. Some indication of the planting and harvesting seasons can be seen from this account:
I find Wheat is sown here in the Fall (beging. of Septr.) Clover & timothy Grass is generally sown with it. The Wheat is cut in June or beginning of July after which the Grass grows very rapidly & always affords two Crops. Where Grass has not been sown they harrow the Ground well where the Wheat is taken off & sow Buck Wheat which ripens by the beginning & through September is excellent food for Poultry & Cattle & makes good Cakes.[23]
The amazing fertility of the soil, as noted by more than one journalist, eased the difficulties of the crude wooden implements which were the farmer's tools. Reference is made to "one [who] plowed the same spot ... for eight years ... [taking] double Crops without giving it an Ounce of Manure."[24] Scientific farming had not yet come to the West Branch Valley, although the Philadelphia area had been awakened to its possibilities through the publications of Franklin's American Philosophical Society.
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.