Independence, such as the courage and integrity
of the American generals, the generosity of the American people, the
skill of Americans in marksmanship, their powers of endurance, their
acclimatization, their confidence and faith, etc., we must never forget
to add their independence in their own homes of any outside help to give
them every necessity of life. No farmer or his wife need fear any king
when on every home farm was found food, drink, medicine, fuel, lighting,
clothing, shelter. Home-made was an adjective that might be applied to
nearly every article in the house. Such would not be the case under
similar stress to-day. In the matter of clothing alone we could not now
be independent. Few farmers raise flax to make linen; few women can spin
either wool or flax, or weave cloth; many cannot knit. In early days
every farmer and his sons raised wool and flax; his wife and daughters
spun them into thread and yarn, knit these into stockings and mittens,
or wove them into linen and cloth, and then made them into clothing.
Even in large cities nearly all women spun yarn and thread, all could
knit, and many had hand-looms to weave cloth at home. These home
occupations in the production of clothing have been very happily termed
the "homespun industries."

Nearly every one has seen one of the pretty foot-wheels for spinning
flax thread for linen, which may yet be found in the attics of many of
our farmhouses, as well as in some of our parlors, where, with a bunch
of flax wound around and tied to the spindle, they have within a few
years been placed as a relic of the olden times.

If one of these flax-wheels could speak to-day, it would sing a tale of
the patient industry, of the tiring work of our grandmothers, even when
they were little children, which ought never to be forgotten.

As soon as the colonists had cleared their farms from stones and stumps,
they planted a field, or "patch" of flax, and usually one of hemp. The
seed was sown broadcast like grass-seed in May. Flax is a graceful plant
with pretty drooping blue flowers; hemp has but a sad-colored blossom.

Thomas Tusser says in his _Book of Housewifery_:--

"Good flax and good hemp to have of her own,
In May a good huswife will see it be sown.
And afterwards trim it to serve in a need;
The fimble to spin, the card for her seed."

When the flax plants were three or four inches high, they were weeded by
young women or children who had to work