Thus a thrifty farmer, in the early summer or spring, would slaughter a calf, sheep or lamb and, reserving what was required for his own use, send the rest to his neighbors,mntil they in turn did the same thing ; and thus the supply was mutual and alternate. This policy was frequently adopted also upon tlie occurrence of a stone, or ploughing ' frolic,' as they were called, or upon the raising of a barn or some other heavy-timbered building, on which occasions a supply of goodfold Jamaica rum acted as a sort of steam power, and at night the affair was often concluded by a liberal supply of lamb or veal pot -pie and generous potations of old cider.

" The cellar of the well-to-do fanner was his larder, being fully stocked with barrels of salted meat and hogsheads of cider, as also with potatoes, turnips, butter, lard and such other provisions as were needful for family use. Even mechanics, carpenters, shoemakei-s, weavers, tailors, coopers, and blacksmiths bad each his acre of land, cow and fatted pig, and whatever they lacked of other provisions they had no difficulty in obtaining by an exchange of labor for farmers' products, at the rate of four dollars per hundred weight of beef, eighteen cents per bushel for potatoes, fifty cents a barrel for apples, seventy-five cents a bushel for wheat, fifty cents for rye and not more than thirty-six cents a bushel for Indian corn, and other produce in proportion ; while the wages of the laboring man ranged from fifty to eighty doUai's a year, with board, and from fifty to seventy-five cents a day. The wages of mechanics were from seventyfive cents to one dollar a day, if boarded, and from one dollar to a dollar and twenty-five cents where they boarded themselves.