The farmers were slow and backward in many things. They possessed no spirit of restlessness and took things coolly, relying, it seems, on the old adage which says that "he who drives with oxen also gets there." While they early built fairly good houses, they were slow in erecting buildings and comfortable places for their horses and cattle, and it was many years before they began to erect sheds and buildings for their machinery. Wagons without spring seats sold at from $100.00 to $125.00; reapers and mowing machines were very expensive and they were generally only a few of these in each neighborhood. The household furniture was cheap and simple; there were no such things as furnaces or hard coal burners. Mostly old stoves were in use for the burning of wood, and these perhaps were second hand, or at least had seen better days. The young man in pioneer days generally started out in life with an ox team, a breaking plow, and a wagon. The wages for breaking were from $1.00 to $2.00 an acre, and when he was not breaking he would often be running a threshing machine or working in the saw mill or in the timber getting out logs. When ox teams were used for breaking, it took one to drive and one to hold the plow in the ground. A person generally broke more land than he could fence, and it was no use to sow wheat and not fence, for in those days the law permitted cattle and horses to run at large. Corn was not cultivated on the new ground to any extent, except that each one raised enough corn for his own use but no more. The corn was generally put in by hand, plowed only once or twice with a single shovel plow pulled by one old nag. In the early days all the cooking was done by the open fireplace; such an article as a stove was not much known. Corn bread and pork, with rye coffee, formed the average bill of fare at the wayside inn and at the farm house. The boarders actually preferred pork to venison; they got tired of game--it was so plentiful. Many a pioneer farmer could shoot from five to ten deer near his door before breakfast.