ong the productions of Virginia in 1781. By this
time many had planted it, but no systematic plan of raising broom-corn
abundantly for the manufacture of brooms was planned till 1798, when
Levi Dickenson, a Yankee farmer of Hadley, Massachusetts, planted half
an acre. From this he made between one and two hundred brooms which he
peddled in a horse-cart in neighboring towns. The following year he
planted an acre; and the tall broom-corn with its spreading panicles
attracted much attention. Though he was thought visionary when he
predicted that broom manufacture would be the greatest industry in the
county, and though he was sneeringly told that only Indians ought to
make brooms, he persevered; and his neighbors finally planted and made
brooms also. He carried brooms soon to Pittsfield, to New London, and in
1805 to Albany and Boston. So rapid was the increase of manufacture that
in 1810 seventy thousand brooms were made in the county. Since then
millions of dollars' worth have gone forth from the farms and villages
in his neighborhood.

Mr. Dickenson at first scraped the seed from the brush with a knife;
then he used a sort of hoe; then a coarse comb like a ripple-comb. He
tied each broom by hand, with the help of a negro servant. Much of this
work could be done by little girls, who soon gave great help in broom
manufacture; though the final sewing (when the needle was pressed
through with a leather "palm" such as sailors use) had to be done by the
strong hands of grown women and men.

Doubtless Abigail Foote made many an "Indian broom," as well as her
brooms of Guinea wheat, which may have been a special home manufacture
of her neighborhood; for many fibres, leaves, and straws were used
locally in broom-making.

Another duty of the women of the old-time household was the picking of
domestic geese. Geese were raised for their feathers more than as food.
In some towns every family had a flock, and their clanking was heard all
day and sometimes all night. They roamed the streets all summer, eating
grass by the highways and wallowing in the puddles. Sometimes they were
yoked with a goose-yoke made of a shingle with a hole in it. In
midwinter they were kept in barnyards, but the rest of the year they
spent the night in the street, each flock near the home of its owner. It
is said that one old goose of each flock always kept awake and stood
watch; and it was told in Hadley, Massachusetts, that if a young man
chanced to be