Hardship and deprivation, however, were common among the early farmers: Joseph Primus, Melrose, during "the first winter had nothing in the way of purchased provisions except 100 pounds of flour." His family did not own a cow, so "their principal fare was deer and rabbit meat cooked in various fashions."

Whether there were cattle or not, work on the early farms was difficult and never seemed to end. Men and boys worked in the fields and woods performing the heavy labor, often in adverse weather, with primitive means of transportation and few cleared trails or roads. Women and children did the work of the household, cared for the livestock, and preserved food.

Women cared for the dairy cows, particularly when there were only one or two family cows. They did the milking, churned the butter, fed and bedded the cattle, and cleaned manure out of the barns. The children helped as they grew old enough. Little girls stood with switches during milking time to shoo off flies and mosquitoes.

Boys and girls gathered cows home from the woods and fields at milking time. August Lemke, Albany, told of bells hung around the necks of cattle to make them easier to find. If one family's cattle grazed with others, each family used a different bell. In the evenings when Lemke brought cattle home, he carried a gun to protect himself from bears and wolves. Some families preferred to tether cows on ropes and chains to graze a new circle every day. Milkers simply went out into the pastures with milk stools and buckets to do their work.

Butter Making

Milk was used raw as fluid milk, in cooking and baking, made into cheese, or churned into butter-in small amounts for home use or in larger amounts for barter or sale at local stores. Bertha Carpenter, Sauk Centre, made five or six pounds of butter once a week. Adeline Koshiol, Luxemburg, said her mother made and sold butter to the nuns and priests in town. If it had "streaks," it had to be worked longer. In the late 1880s six cents for a pound of butter bought many family necessities.