If the labour-saving appliances were so scanty indoors, they were not more numerous outside. The farmer's implements were rude and rough. The wooden plough, with its wrought-iron share, had not disappeared, but ploughs with cast-iron mould-boards, land-sides and shares, were rapidly coming into use. These had hard-wood beams, and a short single handle with which to guide them. They were clumsy, awkward things to work with, as I remember full well, and though an improvement, it was impossible to do nice work with them. Indeed, that part of the question did not receive much consideration, the principal object being to get the ground turned over. They were called patent ploughs. Drags were either tree tops or square wooden frames with iron teeth. The scythe for hay and the cradle for grain, with strong backs and muscular arms to swing them, were the only mowers and reapers known. The hand rake had not been superseded by the horse rake, nor the hoe by the cultivator; and all through the winter, the regular thump, thump of the flails on the barn floor could be heard, or the trampling out of the grain by the horses' feet. The rattle of the fanning mill announced the finishing of the task. Threshing machines and cleaners were yet to come. It will be seen from what I have said that both in the house and out of it work was a stern and exacting master, whose demands were incessant, satisfied only by the utmost diligence. It was simply by this that so much was accomplished. It is true there were other incentives that gave force to the wills and nerves to the arms which enabled our forefathers to overcome the numberless arduous tasks that demanded attention daily throughout the year. All the inventions that have accumulated so rapidly for the last twenty years or more, to lighten the burden and facilitate the accomplishment of labour and production, as well as to promote the comfort of all classes, were unknown fifty years ago. Indeed many of the things that seem so simple and uninteresting to us now, as I shall have occasion to show further on, were then hidden in the future. Take for example the very common and indispensable article, the lucifer match, to the absence of which allusion has already been made. Its simple method of producing fire had never entered the imagination of our most gifted sires. The only way known to them was the primitive one of rubbing two sticks together and producing fire by friction--a somewhat tedious process--or with a flint, a heavy jackknife, and a bit of punk, a fungous growth, the best of which for this purpose is obtained from the beech. Gun flints were most generally used. One of these was placed on a bit of dry punk, and held firmly in the left hand, while the back of the closed blade of the knife thus brought into contact with the flint by a quick downward stroke of the right hand produced a shower of sparks, some of which, falling on the punk, would ignite; and thus a fire was produced.