The word "potash" is indicative of the process of its manufacture and the chief article from which it was made. It was in great demand as a bleaching agent and was extensively used in the making of soap. Shiploads of it were annually exported from Canada. Nearly every farmer had a leach, a large V-shaped vat, which he filled with ashes. Over these he poured a quantity of water, which filtered through the ashes, dissolved, took up in solution the alkaline salts, and trickled out of the bottom in the form of lye. A certain amount of this liquid was required for the manufacture of soft soap for the farmer’s own use. This was made by adding some animal fat to the lye and boiling it down for several hours. The ordinary fire-place provided all the ashes needed for this purpose. The large quantity made from burning the timber in clearing up the land was carried one stage farther for convenience in handling. The lye was boiled down in a huge kettle capable of holding fifty gallons or more, and, when it reached the proper consistency, it was transferred to a large iron pot, known as a cooler, where it congealed into a solid, and in that form received the name of potash. When the country store-keeper became firmly established he received it in exchange for his merchandise, and not infrequently purchased the ashes and manufactured it himself upon a large scale. Some of the farmers hauled their ashes in with their oxen; but the merchant also kept one or more teams thus employed, when not engaged in drawing his goods to and from the nearest shipping point. Up and down the concessions the creaking ash-wagons went, gathering in all that was left of the once proud forest that had been cleared away to make room for the plow. Convenient to the store was an ash-yard, with half a dozen leaches in operation, and the fires were kept roaring under the kettles. Here the wagons unloaded the ashes upon a platform suspended from one end of an evenly balanced beam, while iron weights of fifty-six pounds each, or some other fractional part of the long ton, were placed upon a smaller platform suspended from the other end of the beam. This was the customary method of weighing bulky substances that could not be conveniently weighed by the steelyards. When the first crop of grain was obtained, it was harvested with the crude implements of the day and conveyed to the threshing floor. As a rule this consisted of a bare piece of ground, sometimes covered with boards or flat stones, but more frequently the bare earth had no covering. Here the grain was pounded out with a flail, and Nature supplied the fanning-mill; the mixed grain and chaff were tossed into the air during a stiff breeze, and the chaff was blown away.