Farming In Colonial America

Words: 1224
Pages: 5

In the American Colonial times hundreds of years ago, people had to work for their food. The modern supermarket that we know today, where you can get all kinds of food, was not an option back then. Their life was not much like ours; they had to hunt for their daily meals, watch out for illnesses in their drinks, use wooden utensils, and they even had a different dinner table setup.
Finding food was not an easy task until Squanto, a helpful Native American, came to help them. He taught them all about farming. Squanto showed them how to grow and tend to their crops. With his help they started to grow corn, beans, and wheat. That exposed them to a new type of food source, farming, which later became their most valuable source of food (Paul Erieckson 30). The first wheat crop was grown in the New England colonies in Massachusetts. Farming in the New England colonies was more challenging because of their type of soil. The soil there was poor and rocky which made it unsuitable for crops to grow. Harsh winters would often kill the crops, but people usually farmed enough to feed their families and store leftovers for the tough winters (Lynne). In the
…show more content…
It was abnormal for them to drink water. Water was a hard source to find; it was always dirty and could make them ill. Instead, they drank different types of juices (Lynne). The kids would have cider, and the adults would have handmade beer. Beer was made from the wheats they grew. Beer was easy to brew from barley and hops, or from roots such as ginger, sassafras or spruce. It quickly gained popularity in the colonies (Lynne 3). The first apple orchards were planted shortly after 1630. With the increase in the apple crop, beer began to be supplanted by cider. A man could leave several hundred barrels of cider in his will (Lynne 3). Since water was uncommonly used as a drink, it was considered by the colonists to be unfit for