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Almost all of the pioneer families, as we have noted in the family histories contained in this section, were farmers. By the end of the 1820s the unbroken, virgin forest which had stood unharmed for thousands of years had huge bare patches in it. The pioneers' attitude toward the forest was like the modern real estate developers' attitude toward the soil. T hey had no regard for the trees. Unwittingly the absentee landowners preserved the forest along the western half of the lakefront and the huge north-eastern portion of the Township. But by 1837 the settlements along the Brock Road and eastern lakefront were well established. In "The Life and Times of Joseph Gould", Joseph describes how the farmers created their fields from the virgin forest. "The Penna. people coming into Canada had been in the habit of grubbing their land with a mattock. This implement had an axe at one end and a hoe at the other. They would cut the underbrush down and pile it up in small heaps; then they would cut down the oak and other large trees. They next cut the bodies of the trees into logs; took the tops and chopped them up fine, and piled them up in separate heaps. Next they set fire to the brush and burned up the heaps. In this way it would take a good hand from eight to ten days to chop an acre. Then it would take five men and a yoke of oxen a day to clear up from one-half to an acre, logging; and it would take a man a day or two to pick up the chunks of wood and do the burning of the logs." The fields were difficult to carve out but the rich clay loam soil yielded fine crops. Again we quote Joseph Gould: "About the tenth of September was the time selected for sowing wheat. It was harrowed over with a three-cornered drag and oxen. Good crops were the invariable result........ "The mode of harvesting, we are informed, was to cut down the grain with an American sickle. This was part of women's as well as men's work. All, male and female, young and old., turned out to help at haying and through harvest time. In old cleared fallows the wheat was sown in "lands" or ridges. The best reaper was selected to take the lead; the others started about a stroke of the sickle, each, behind and followed each other in rotation. It was part of the duty of the foreman to go back after the reapers, and see that each had laid his or her sheaf down evenly, so that there would be no trouble in binding. Oats were mostly cut with a hand cradle; in low places the sickle was used. The threshing was done either by hand flails or on the barn floor by driving oxen or horses over the grain until threshed. The meadows were all cut with a scythe, and raked by hand, and pitched on with a hand-fork... "But in time the flail was driven out by horse power and that in turn gave way to the steam thresher, while the reaper and the mower and the self-binder have taken the place of the scythe and sickle, and of the leader, and the rows of men and women reapers who followed after him in the grain field." Twenty-five years after the first terrible onslaughts upon the forest, the farmers began to use their magnificent timber for other than purely local purposes, and during the 1820s sawmills began to appear on the banks of several of the arms of Duffin's Creek; although even at this early date many of the best trees had been destroyed. Joseph Gould deplored this dreadful waste, and said: "In clearing the land little regard appears to have been paid to the value of the magnificent timber which everywhere grew so abundantly. Vast forests of the finest pine and oak were ruthlessly felled and given to the flames, without a thought of the value of the sacrifice.. The splendid t rees were looked upon as an incumbrance upon the face of the earth, and a hindrance to the cultivation of the soil. The one grand object appeared to be to get rid of the forest anyhow, no matter by what destructive means in order to speedily secure clearings for crops." With the coming of more settlers in the 1820s, sawmills began to provide squared timbers for houses and barns and white pine planks for the home carpenters. There was evidently,as the supply of timber at York became depleted, a small export trade in lumber but this industry was primarily of the later period of the 1840s when the docks were built at FRenchman's Bay. During the early 1830s Silas Tool has advised the writer there was a small boatbuilding industry at the mouth of the Rouge and Frenchman's Bay. The Government of Ontario Conservation R.D. H.P. Report, 1956 gives us figures: Pickering township 1825 1828 1832 1836 Grist and Saw mills Grist Saw Grist Saw G rist Saw Grist Saw 1 3 0 5 3 7 2 11 The/(first) grist mill mentioned here was Timothy Roger's which was in operation from 1807-1827, when Timothy died. (See Diary). Before 1807 the farmers had to carry their grain on their backs along the Indian trails of the present Brock Road and Kingston Road to Oshawa to be ground. In the summer a few of them used crude dugout canoes or Indian canoes. (The Annis Annals mention that one of their men paddled to Cobourg with grain.) There were no early furniture factories, woollen mills or carriage shops. These all came later and the pioneer men made most of their own furniture. Some of it is still around, beautiful plain white pine cupboards, sideboards, simple maple and pine chairs, maple butter bowls, harvest tables with maple legs and pine tops, wooden churns, deacons' benches with elm