no measure at that time.

However, this was a great encouragement to me; and I foresaw, that in
time it would please God to supply me with bread: and yet here I was
perplexed again; for I neither knew how to grind or make meal of my
corn, or indeed how to clean it and part it; nor, if made into meal, how
to make bread of it; and if how to make it, yet. I knew not how to bake
it. These things being added to my desire of having a good quantity for
store, and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to taste any of
this crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the next season, and
in the meantime to employ all my study and hours of working to
accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.

It might be truly said, that I now worked for my bread. It is a little
wonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon; viz.
the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing,
producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article
of bread.

I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to be my daily
discouragement, and was made more and more sensible of it every hour,
even after I got the first handful of seed corn, which, as I have said,
came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise. First, I had no plough
to turn the earth, no spade or shovel to dig it. Well, this I conquered
by making a wooden spade, as I observed before; but this did my work but
in a wooden manner; and though it cost me a great many days to make it,
yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out the sooner, but made my work
the harder, and made it be performed much worse.

However, this I bore with too, and was content to work it out with
patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the corn
was sowed, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and
drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch the earth, as it
may be called, rather than rake or harrow it.

When it was growing or grown, I have observed already how many things I
wanted, to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure or carry it home,
thresh, part it from the chaff, and save it. Then I wanted a mill to
grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, and
an oven to bake it in; and all these things I did without, as shall be
observed; and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and advantage to
me too; but all this, as I said, made every thing laborious and tediou