Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/129

 the more necessitous families are bound out to labour for other people. The Scotch family, recently mentioned, have a boy and a girl living with them in this way. The indenture of the boy expires when he is twenty-one years of age; that of the girl at eighteen. They are clothed and educated at the expense of the employer. The boy, at the expiry of his contract, is to have a horse and saddle, of value at least 100 dollars; and the girl at the end of her engagement, is to have a bedding of clothes. It is said, that a law of the State of Ohio, forbids females to live in the houses of unmarried men.

The utensils used in agriculture are not numerous. The plough is short, clumsy, and not calculated to make either deep or neat furrows. The harrow is triangular; and is yoked with one of its angles forward, that it may be less apt to take hold {99} of the stumps of trees in the way. Light articles are carried on horseback, heavy ones by a coarse sledge, by a cart, or by a waggon. The smaller implements are the axe, the pick-axe, and the cradle-scythe; by far the most commendable of back wood apparatus.

The figure [page 125] is descriptive of the cradle scythe. AEGB is the shaft. In working, it is held by the left hand with the thumb upward, near A; while the right hand holds the cross handle at H. BD is a post, making an angle of about 78 degrees with the straight line AB. Into this post the five wooden ribs, or fingers, MN, OP, QR, ST, and UV, are fixed. These are round pieces of tough wood, of a curvature resembling that of the back of the blade, as nearly as possible. They are upwards of half an inch in diameter; and are pointed at the extremities MOQSU. FG is another post, fixed in the shaft, parallel to BD, and about seven inches distant from it. ED is a