Clearing the Way

One of the first thing an early farmer had to do was clear the land. This wasn't an easy task, even if they were lucky enough to have an ox, mule, or work horse. Much of the land was virgin forest - lush, green, and teeming with old growth and vegetation. He would try to clear one or two acres a year for fields or pastures. By the end of his life, he would not likely to have cleared 100 acres.

The colonials learned to gird trees from the Indians. A man would cut a hand-wide notched band around a tree. The tree would no longer sprout and all the small limbs would die. This would let the sunlight filter in better. The farmer might eventually chop down some of the trees and let the stumps rot in the fields, unless he had a team of oxen to pull them out.

In "Voices from Colonial America" (National Geographic, 2003) Lisa Trumbauer shares one farmer's account: "This spring we planted about an acre of potatoes and a small piece of corn. Did all the work with hoe. Had no plough and oxen strayed. Had not a book or scrap of printed paper. Every night wolves howled and owls hooted."

Clearing land remained a problem as settlers moved into the Appalachians and pushed west. In the prairie states, the farmers might not have to battle trees and undergrowth to have their fields, but they had to fight the tenacious grasses and their hefty root systems.

Cleared for Planting gets its name from this struggle in the Appalachians. Emma's family and Edgar's family are farmers. At one point Emma writes, "Papa and Uncle Roy have cleared an extra field and are planting corn there. I guess we will have plenty of cornmeal, grits, and hominy come fall. I see what you were talking about in clearing land for planting. Life is like that too, I think. There are always problems to be cleared so we can plant better things."

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A Taste of Honey

In earlier times, those in remote places or people without the means to buy from the store often used honey to sweeten instead of sugar. Molasses would become important in certain areas but not at first. Here are some recipes using honey:

German Honey Cakes

1 cup honey
1/8 cup butter or margarine
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1 beaten egg yolk
1 egg white
9 ounces bread flour by weight
Boil and skim the honey. Add butter and let cool to lukewarm. Dissolve baking soda in a little water and add. Mix in beaten egg yolk and then flour. Beat egg white until stiff and fold in. Put batter in refrigerator for about 2 hours. Spoon onto greased baking sheet like cookies. Bake for 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 375 degrees. Makes about 3 doz.

Honey Muffins

2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
Stir flour and sugar together. In a separate bowl blend the last 4 ingredients. Mix into flour until moist, but don't over stir. Spoon into greased or muffin cups with paper liners. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for about 17 minutes or until done. Makes about 1 doz.

Honey Glazed Ham

4-5 pound ready-to-eat ham
1 pint honey
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup butter or margarine
Mix liquid ingredients and ginger and warm in a double boiler. Score ham and baste it with glaze. Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 1 1/4 hours, basting the ham about every 15 minutes with the warm glaze. Turn oven on broil for the last 5 minutes. (Lining the baking pan with heavy duty aluminum foil will help with the clean-up.)

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Ginseng

Ginseng became an important way to make money for Appalachians early in their history. Native Americans had used the plants for medicine first. The Chinese had revered it for ages and provided a willing market for any exports. There's indication that Daniel Boone harvested the roots, and Thomas Jefferson listed the plant among his inventories. In 1824, about 750,000 pounds of ginseng roots were shipped to China. By the late 1800's it was already getting harder to find. Today it is found in the eastern United States around the Appalachian region from Georgia to Maine.

The term "ginseng" is the Americanization of the Chinese term "jin-chen," meaning manlike. The roots often resemble an abstract image of a body. In the mountains where it grows, it has the nickname of "seng." Although ginseng can be domestically grown, it doesn't have the same quality as that grown in the wild. The wild ones are easily recognized by their rings on the roots. This indicates it's higher in medicinal properties. The plant with more whorls making up its leaves also has a better quality. They generally range from two to six of these leaf parts, and those with six are highly sought. As the plant has become more scarce, the price has soared. Although the price varies, a digger can expect to get somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 to $600 per pound for

ginseng. Domestically grown ginseng brings a fraction of that, but the wild plant is getting rarer all the time, and most ginseng on the market today comes from the domestically grown plants.

My mother remembered hunting for ginseng. In Cleared for Planting, Emma will learn its uses from the Cherokee, and in the next book in the Appalachian Roots series, Sown in Dark Soil, both Emma and Leah use it to treat people but not to sell.

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Spinning Wheels

Spinning is a very old craft. The first spinning was done by twisting fibers by hand, but this evolved into the drop spindle and then the spinning wheel. The first true spinning wheel is believed to have been invented in India about a thousand years ago. The idea spread to other parts of Asia and Europe.

There are two basic types of spinning wheels, The great wheel or high wheel is the oldest style. It's sometimes called a walking wheel, because the spinner stands beside the wheel. The high wheel is often used to spin wool yarn. This was the style most often used in mountain regions and where sheep were raised. For example, the Scots used the wool threads to weave their tartan plaids, and the pattern denoted their clan.

The treadle wheel or the flax wheel was developed around the sixteenth century. This is the type of wheel associated more with the fairy tales, like "Cinderella" and "Rumpelstiltskin." The spinner sits to use it, and it's used more to spin flax into linen thread.

Spinning and weaving became important industries, both in the home and as a business. In the colonies, weavers often blended the wool and linen to make a durable fabric known as linsey-woolsey. Spinning and weaving lasted well into the 19th and even 20th centuries in remote areas like the Highlands and the Appalachians.

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Early Medicine

For almost a thousand years, medical theory had been based on the Galenic Medical System. It had been created by Galen in the first century A.D. and held that the world was composed of four main elements: earth, fire, water, and wind. Based on the teachings of Hippocrates and Aristotle, Galen believed these elements were exhibited in the body as four humors: black bile, blood, phlegm, and yellow bile. Doctors thought illness occurred when the humors were impure or out of balance - personality disorders as well as physical ones. If a person had developed too much of a humor, he or she could be cured by purging, bleeding, or

sweating. Those that had too little of a humor were treated with food and medicines. Each humor had symptoms the doctor could access. Black bile would be cold and dry, blood was moist and warm, phlegm was moist and cool, and yellow bile would be warm and dry. If the body developed too much or too little of any humor, it would cause problems, and the doctor would try to treat the patient.

In the 1600's medicine began to make a few advances. An English doctor, William Harvey, had discovered the circulation of the blood, and the invention of the microscope allowed the first glimpse of bacteria (although they didn't know what this meant to

medicine). By the 1700's, medicine was changing, and new medicines, like opium and cochina bark, had been introduced. Herman Boerhaave believed that sickness came from an imbalance of "natural activities," and a fever was the body's attempt to help. He thought the best procedure was to sweeten the acid in the body, purify the stomach, and get rid of any impurities through bleeding or purging. Booerhaave's system was the most commonly practiced one in Colonial America.

Most people in early America lived too far away from a doctor, however, and folk medicine, usually practiced by women for their families and neighbors, became common. In Cleared for Planting, Emma learns herbs and medicine from a Cherokee. Her son, Clifton, will later become a practicing doctor. He first uses the known methods of bleeding and purging, but later changes his mind about their benefits.

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Joy Be

And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves (John 17:13).

Have you ever been so filled with God's love, so overcome with His presence that you didn't think you could contain it all? You felt almost as if you might burst with it, but it was too wonderful to describe. Do you often cry tears of joy when you go to Him in prayer, because you feel Him with you, and He's so overwhelmingly awesome. 

Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance (Acts 2:28).

It took me a while to realize in order to experience this type of joy, I had to empty myself of self and the selfishness it demands and totally surrender to God. When I'm empty, the Holy Spirit can completely fill me and take over. Then I actually become a person I like, the one God has always meant me to be - His. I really don't have to do anything but surrender and let Him work. It's not me who can do anything good, but Him in me.

For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 13:17).

God wants to give this indescribable joy to all His children. He wants us to find our delight in Him. If you haven't found it, just ask Him to help you, and He will.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost (Romans 15:13).

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Wheelwright

In the days of wagons, nearly every town had a wheelwright. He made and repaired wagon, cart, and spinning wheels. He started with the hub or center, which was the strongest part of the wheel. It held more around a dozen spokes in place and was made from the center core of a tree that had been aged for at least seven years to get it perfectly dry. The axle ran through the center of the hub to turn the wheel. The rim of the wheel was made from several curved sections to form a circle. When the wheel was finished, an iron ring was fitted around the outside of the wheel by heating it and hammering it into place. It cooled and shrank to grip the wheel tightly.

The wheels would still become worn with use, and they would need repairing or replacing. In Cleared for Planting, Emma's family stops in Tucker's Barn (later to become Lenoir, NC) to take care of their wheels. Still, after they get up the mountain and head toward Uncle Roy's, a wheel comes off causing Emma to be bruised, Christie to skin her face, and Francie to break her arm. Fred Moretz comes to their rescue and takes them home with him for the night. That's when Emma first meets Edgar, Fred's youngest son. They are able to repair the wagon the next day and the Cagles continue on to Roy's cabin in the direction of the Linville River.

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