osely
treasured in those days when boys had so few belongings, that it is
pathetic to read of many a farm lad's struggles and long hours of weary
work to obtain a good knife. Barlow knives were the most highly prized
for certainly sixty years, and had, I am told, a vast popularity for
over a century. May they forever rest in glorious memory, as they lived
the happiest of lots! To be the best beloved of a century of Yankee
boys is indeed an enviable destiny. A few battered old soldiers of this
vast army of Barlow jack-knives still linger to show us the homely
features borne by the century's well beloved: the Smithsonian
Institution cherishes some of colonial days; and from Deerfield Memorial
Hall are shown three Barlow knives whose picture should appear to every
American something more than the presentment of dull bits of wood and
rusted metal. These Yankee jack-knives were, said Daniel Webster, the
direct forerunners of the cotton-gin and thousands of noble American
inventions; the New England boy's whittling was his alphabet of
mechanics.

In this connection, let us note the skilful and utilitarian adaptation
not only of natural materials for domestic and farm use, but also
natural forms. The farmer and his wife both turned to Nature for
implements and utensils, or for parts adapted to shape readily into the
implements and utensils of every-day life. When we read of the first
Boston settlers that "the dainty Indian maize was eat with clam-shells
out of wooden trays," we learn of a primitive spoon, a clam-shell set in
a split stick, which has been used till this century. Large flat
clam-shells were used and highly esteemed by housewives, as
skimming-shells in the dairy, to skim cream from the milk. Gourd-shells
made capital bowls, skimmers, dippers, and bottles; pumpkin-shells, good
seed and grain holders. Turkey-wings made an ever-ready hearth-brush. In
the forests were many "crooked sticks" that were more useful than any
straight ones could be. When the mower wanted a new snathe or snead, as
he called it, for his scythe, he found in the woods a deformed sapling
that had grown under a log or twisted around a rock in a double bend,
which made it the exact shape desired. He then whittled it, dressed it
with a draw-shave, fastened the nebs with a neb-wedge, hung it with an
iron ring, and was ready for the mowing-field.

Sled-runners were made from saplings bent at the root. The best thills
for a cart were those naturall