TIP #512: CORN, FLAX, CRADLE, CLEANING FLAX AND ROPE My tip for today will take us right back to the early days of Kentucky and before, long before any settler could even imagine our 21st century inventions. How many of you, upon reading the census, noted over and over the occupation of farmer. Not very exciting you say? Did you ever wish your ancestor was a lawyer, doctor, explorer instead? But farming ... so mundane. Having grown up on the farm in my youth, but thankfully at an age where I wasn't personally involved in the rigors of farming, I nevertheless understood very early in life that a farmer's life is not an easy life. The writing today come from a late historian in Barren County KY who wrote under the pen name of "Ellot" - William Daniel Tolle. He wrote for a local paper for several decades and makes the reader feel as if you were sitting along beside him on an old wagon, traveling over the area and interviewing people and having them tell you about your lives. This article was written about 1880-1890. Here is what he wrote on the topic at hand this week. "When the land was first cleared (by the early settlers), the principal crop was Indian corn. The land was very rich and made heavy yields. In a very few years other products were raised, such as flax and cotton for the making of clothes. An old saying was that Good Friday was the day to sow flax seed, another saying was that March tow was better than April flax; meaning that flax seeds sown in March would make tow that would be better than flax if the seed were soon in April. Sometimes early and sometimes late, so that rule won't work. The flax seed produces only one stalk, so the seeds must be sown thick. Another old time saying was that the seeds be sown thick enough that by wetting the ball of the thumb and placing it down in the ground nine seeds would stick to it. "Flax seeds should be sown early in the year as the ground becomes warm enough for them to germinate and grow off well, it requires soil of good fertility. The seeds are plowed in with a shovel plow and the ground brushed or dragged in order to make a smooth surface. They are left to grow; the stalk growing to the height of about two to two and one half feet, forming many sprin-angles or shoots at the top of the stalk, putting forth blue or purple flowers, and forming pods of bolls filled with seeds. When these balls become brown the stalks are ready to pull up and laid in a straight even swath and left to cure. When the stalks and balls are sufficiently cured, they are taken up, tied in bundles, hauled to the barn, bulked away and left for a later day. When winter draws near, all other crops are safely harvested, on some rainy day perhaps, the seeds are beaten off with a hand maul or mallet preparatory to hauling back to the field and being again spread out in smooth even swaths to go through a process of "rotting." It is always desirable that this process should take place in the winter, under snow if possible, in or under to whiten the lint. When sufficiently rotted for the stalk to break easy so it could be easily separated from the lint, it was taken up again, tied in bundles and hauled to the barn. Generally through the months of February and March it was cleaned and made ready for the loom. "I believe I could make a flax break with more ease or accuracy than I can describe one; but I will try and describe on as the break is the next thing to use in the history of flax. "Four parts, four or five inches square required to start with, two of them something like two and a half feet long; two of them six inches longer. Holes should be morticed in them and cross pieces four inches wide and two inches thick should be put in the mortices and made perfectly tight. The mortices must be the same distance from the foot of the posts but the posts for the rear end of the break should be wider apart then those of the front end. Three slats or swords are the next thing required which should be about four feet long and one half inch thick with the top edge beveled off with a round bevel to about the thickness of a quarter of an inch. One of these should be let into the cross pieces in the post, in the exact middle, and firmly fastened; the other should be let in the cross pieces on each side of the first one, and something like one and a half inches from the first one at the front end and two and a half or three inches at the seam end, all of them securely fastened. [Note: I hope some of you understand how this works .... it took ingenuity to figure this all out and I would be lost immediately!]. A block of wood is now wanted for the head. It can be about twelve inches long, four or five inches thick and ten to twelve inches broad. The top corners must be rounded off making a nice smooth head on top with the under edge smooth and level; holes must be bored in the posts on the back end and above the cross piece for another piece of timber to work in, the ends of which are rounded and dressed so as to fit the holes in the posts but not tight enough to prevent its working; two swords or slats are placed in the bottom side of this cross piece and in the head so they will come down and work nicely between the bottom swords. This last work would have to be done before the rear parts are closed up and fastened, in order to let the ends of the top cross piece go through the holes of the posts. A good firm piece of timber round and smooth about one and a half inches long is placed in the head piece and back top cross piece for the handle. The above is a pretty fair description of the old time flax break which is a thing of the past. (Whew!) After closing up and making everything tight and secure, the break is ready for use. "A sunshiney day is preferable for the work so the flax can be spread out in the sun which makes it more easy to work. The operator takes a bunch of the straw, enough to make a good sized handful when broke and raises the tip of the break, putting the flax between the upper and lower swords, beginning at the rear end of the break where the swords are furthest apart, moving the tip of the break up and down with one hand, and as the stalks break and fall, he moves on nearer to the front end of the break where the swords are nearer together. When the stalks are well broken and fallen under the break in what was called "herds", the lint was given a few twists in order to keep it more compact and hung up in a proper condition across a pole or something of a suitable nature. One hundred pounds was regarded as a good days work for a good hand. "The swingling is now in order. A swingling board was made of a common clapboard six or eight inches wide, either nailed to a block, or one end of the board sharpened and drove into the ground, the end of the board being dressed off making it smooth and of proper shape and height. A swingling knife was generally made of hickory wood, about one inch thick, two and a half to three inches wide and about twenty inches long. It as nicely beveled from the center to the edge on each side and tapered to the end; a good hand hold was made. It was well dressed and well shaped in every particular. All things being ready a handfull of flax was taken, put across the board, held with one hand and beaten with the knife, held in the other hand. This process was kept up until all the fine herds were beaten out and the lint became soft and pliable. Cleaning two to three dozen handfuls of flax in a day was a big days work for one person. "When the flax left the swingling board, it went to the hatchel; which was a piece of hard wood probably ten inches wide, twenty inches long, with a sufficient number of iron spikes through the middle of it to answer to the purpose of drawing the flax through the spikes. In going through this process every thing was cleaned out, leaving nothing but the pure lint. The tow from the swingling board was called swingling tow, and that from the hatchel called hackling tow; it was much finer than the swingling tow and was used for making the best articles of the tow cloth. "The flax was spun on a little low wheel commonly called a flax wheel. It was run by a treadle, the performer sitting in a chair and running the wheel with the feet on the treadle. Cloth in an early day was made of cotton warp and flax filling; the filling being spun on the little wheel. My mother used to spin towing thread and shoe thread on the flax wheel, which was better and stronger than the thread of today. She used to make flax jeans which was nice and durable. Any flax cloth that can be found at this time is highly prized and kept as an heirloom. "Tow from the flax was spun on the cotton or big wheel as it was called. The spinner had to walk back and forth. When the crop of tow was spun it was put in the loom and woven into cloth. Some of the finest was used at home for different purposes but much of it was exchanged with the merchants for other goods. The woman as a general rule claimed this cloth and purchased their spring dressing with it. The price was generally about twenty cents per yard. The merchants always expected a deal with the ladies when the tow cloth was ready for market, and always prepared for them, having the kinds of goods on hand that they knew they would want, and was as proud to see the country ladies coming in with a big roll of tow cloth as they are today seeing them coming in with a big roll of green backs. The flax seeds also had a value from fifty to seventy five cents per bushel. There was another use that tow was put to in those days; that of making rope. Plow lines and bed cords were all made of flax tow in an early day. "While most every farmer had a flax break, all of them did not have what was termed "Rope Works." In order to make the words, a post should be gotten sixteen or eighteen inches through and the part above the ground should be firmly planted in the ground. Three holes should be bored in the post at the proper height for the operator to work his hands and arms naturally. The holes should be in a triangle, each one the same distance apart. A plant or board should be secured of proper width and length and holes bored through it to correspond precisely with the holes through the post. Cranks are made with one stem to go through the post and project out two or three inches; the other stems to go through the board. (The ends of which is dressed down for good hand holds). The mechanism of these cranks is such that when put through the post and the other stems put through the board they will all turn easily by manipulating the board. "We will now measure off one hundred feet of level ground on a perfect line with the post above described. Here we have a pair of truck wheels placed on a heavy axle, with another post fastened to the axle and a heavy tongue projecting out behind. A hole is bored in this post and one crank put through it. We are now ready for laying the strands which is done by taking the thread is it comes from the wheel, tieing one end to the stem of the crank at the large post and going to the other post, running it off the ball as you go, and tie to the crank at the post at the trucks. You pass backward and forward tieing at each post until the strand is made as large as desirable. You then tie to another crank at the big post at the big post and go through the same process until three strands are laid which number constitutes a rope. Everything is now ready for some person to take hold of the ends of the board through which the stems of the three cranks are placed at the big post and to turning. In this way all three of the strands are twisted at the same time. Some persons are watching along the line to keep the strands from getting together. When the strands are twisted sufficiently hard, one person takes a small forked stick and places it over the middle strand, the other two running on each side. One person now begins turning the crank (this is all done at the end where the trucks are). The person holding the fork moves forward as the twist forces him out. This is called laying the rope. When the person using the fork gets as near the big post as possible, the rope undergoes a dressing, which is done by taking three corn cobs, putting them around the rope lengthwise and giving it a good rubbing. "It is now taken off, the ends well tied to prevent raveling and done up pretty much as farmers fix their plow lines when taking their teams from the plow, only done much nicer and wrapped much more. The above description is for a bed cord which is ninety feet long having drawn up ten feet in making it. Many of them were sold to the merchants for ninety cents in exchange for their goods; one dollar being the general price for bed cords in those days before rope was being shipped into the country from factories as at present. (c) Copyright 20 Oct 2004, taken from "Backroads of Barren County", Sandra K. Gorin, Gorin Genealogical Publishing, (c) May 1994. All Rights Reserved. Colonel Sandi Gorin SCKY Links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html Sandi's Puzzlers: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/gorin/puz.html Gorin Publishing: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/