In countries where labor is cheaper than the use of machinery, the home has retained its function as a center of production. Under such circumstances life is simple and wants necessarily few. In some communities women still do all the spinning and weaving, the making of the clothing, and the preparation of all foods for consumption. This type of family especially when it owns the ground it occupies, represents a self-sufficing economic unit, such as was characteristic of the period of domestic industry before the era of machinery. In the early colonial days of the United States many homes represented the best of European civilization in their culture and ideals. But economically they represented an earlier industrial stage. Specialization and co-operation were not practiced, and all the hardships were felt that characterized a domestic system of industry. A farmer said in 1787 “At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a good living on the produce of it, and left me one year with another one hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I never spent more than ten dollars a year which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat or wear was bought, as my farm provided all.”[49] Undoubtedly the duties of the farmer’s wife differed little from those of the German woman in the 18th century whose husband lauded her in the following words. “Our cheese and butter, apples, pears, and plums, fresh or dry, were all of her own preparation.... Her pickles (fruit preserved in vinegar) excelled anything I ever ate, and I do not know how she could make the vinegar so incomparable. Every year she made bitter drops for the stomach. She prepared her elderberry wine herself, and better peppermint than hers was found in no convent. During all our married life no one brought a penny-worth of medicine from the apothecary”....[50] The introduction of the factory product into the home was a slow process, and was stubbornly resisted. If it were left to choice we would still be clinging to the home-made article with a tenacity more creditable to our conservatism than our judgment. Fortunately, necessity forces men to change their habits. At present many of the occupations followed by our grandmothers have left the home for all time, and we have become reconciled to the change.