Nineteenth Century Farming

Farming during the early nineteenth century was very unlike today. For settlers who were interested, they had some options if they wanted to buy farm land. The families with the least amount of money could get land as squatters. They drastically changed the land into a valuable working farm and desired to purchase the land later on. Those settlers with limited means could examine the land and purchase a parcel from a government land office for a certain cost per acre.
Most farm families raised various crops, a lot of which can no longer be found today. Usually, the earliest settlers lived on land where soil was orchestrated to a variety of plants. Corn and wheat were the most usual cereal crops, and were among the few excess crops that could
be traded. A lot of families made small plots for sowing oats and planting potatoes. They also put aside small areas of land for watermelons, beans, and squash, to name a few. Where tress that produced nuts could be found, families gathered hazelnuts, hickory, and walnuts. They would also produce a small crop of cotton to combine with their wool for clothing.
Farmers valued their livestock, which included cattle, hogs, horses, chickens, and sheep. Sheep were raised cautiously, because their wool was the significant tool in a families clothing and blankets. The Chickens supplied eggs for the family, hogs frequently were raised as meat for the family table and also the scraps were saved for those hogs made for butcher. Milking the cows provided milk and cream for the butter. Oxen and horses were important for traveling or tilling fields. During the day, cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs, were free to wander over the familiar land to eat as they pleased. All in all, with trees, good land, and water, families were pretty self-sufficient during pre-war.