Brigham Young

“ A man may be good and industrious—may be an excellent mechanic, and in many things a diligent man, as is the case with a number with whom I am acquainted; yet go to his house and ask, "Have you a pig in your pen?" "No, I have nothing to feed a pig with; I cannot keep one." Sit down to his table, and he has not a mouthful of meat from week's end to week's end, unless he buys a little. "Have you a cow?" "No, I have nothing to feed a cow; I cannot hire a pasture; and were I to hire one driven to grass as far as the herd boys go, she would not give milk enough to pay the herd bill." ”

“ What hinders you from raising something to feed a cow? Nothing. Who hinders you from planting your garden with corn, and saving the suckers and the fodder? Who hinders you from raising carrots, parsnips, squashes, &c., to feed a cow with through the winter? This you can do on a little more than a quarter of an acre, but will you do it? No; many of you will not. Does any one hinder you? ”

“ I have taught the brethren how to live upon less than five, three, or even two dollars a day for the support of a small family; and when men complain that they live here on bread alone they do not reflect that they do not know how to provide for themselves. Years pass away, one after another and I see more and more that there are but very few men and women that are even capable of taking care of themselves temporally.
You will see women, if their husbands have got fifty cents, who must buy crackers with it, or something nice. ”

“ We pay the public hands higher wages than they earn, and if they are obliged to live on bread alone from day to day, it is for want of economy and proper management. Am I to blame? No. Will I milk your cows for you? No. Will I buy butter for you? No; we will give you all that is brought in on tithing, and when we have done that, you may calculate to do without, or make your own butter. I know families that milk one cow for eight or ten in the family, and yet have butter on the table all the time, and occasionally sell a little. ”

“ Let me have the privilege of dictating every chore about my house, and I would soon put everything right. I do not have that privilege, for I have so many and so much around me, that I have to depend upon others. During the past six years, I have seldom kept in my yard less than thirteen cows for the use of my family, and there has not been one year of that time that we have had much more than milk enough the year round to put in the tea and coffee. I have directed the men who feed my cows to take a course to prevent such a variation in the supply of milk. ”

“ When I was keeping a house, if my neighbours had a million hogsheads of vinegar, I had no need to buy a spoonful of it, for I would make a plenty for my own use, and would have eggs, butter, and pork, of my own producing, and manage to secure beef, and salt it away nicely, and we had all the essentials for comfortable diet.
Will the people continue to live? ”

“ I have laboured for fifteen dollars a month to support a family, and that, too, in a place that was as hard again for a person to live in as it is in this city. You could not have the free use of so much as a quarter of an acre of ground thrown out to the public for a cow to graze upon. You could not get a stick of wood, although in a well wooded country, without paying for it. You could not get a pint of milk, or even of buttermilk, unless you paid the money for it. ”

“ If a man is a good husband, and knows how to live, let him teach his wife how to cook the food he provides, as I have some of my wives, more or less, notwithstanding I have some excellent cooks; but I do not think that I have one but what I can teach in the art of cooking some particular varieties of food, for I have at times been obliged to pay considerable attention to this matter. ”

“ But you may take a hard-working man, one earning good wages, and though he carries an abundance into his house, his wife may sit there and toss it out again. You will find that much depends upon the economy of women, in regard to the living of the poorer class of the people—of the labouring class. For instance, let a man buy ten pounds of fresh meat and carry it home, in the morning the wife will cook up, perhaps, four or five pounds of that meat for the breakfast of the man, the wife, and a little child. ”

“ He said, "It is whispered about that some of the brethren labouring on the Public Works are living on dry bread." I want to preach a short discourse upon this subject, and I will endeavour to do so to the understanding of those present I acknowledge that some persons live very poorly, and are very destitute; but there is not one family out of a thousand in this Territory of those who live poorly, but what that destitute mode of living is brought upon them by themselves through their own mismanagement or the want of economy. ”

“ Go round this city now, and probably you will not see one garden out of twenty, even where men have lived here four or five years, that has a single fruit tree growing in it. Have they set out anything? ”

“ And when I go into a house, I can soon know whether the woman is an economical housekeeper or not; and if I stay a few days, I can tell whether a husband can get rich or not. If she is determined on her own course, and will waste and spoil the food entrusted to her, that man will always be poor.
Some women will set emptyings in the morning, and let them stand until they sour, and mix up the flour with them, and sweeten it with saleratus, and then knead it ready for baking ”

“ You may say that it is hard work to please a man; yes, and woman too. But when a man does his duty in providing for a family, there can reasonably be but little complaint on the part of any sensible woman. ”

“ I comfortably and that, too, in a country where supported a family when I was poor, it was more difficult to do so than it is here,—where it often was almost impossible to hire to do a day's work,—where a man would have to run and, perhaps, beg, and plead to be employed to do a days work; and when the labour was performed, it was frequently worth twice the amount to get the pay, which would generally be only three or four bits; though sometimes ordinary mechanics would receive five or six bits, and good mechanics one dollar or one dollar and a quarter a day. ”

“ There stood fourteen new milch cows, and not a drop of milk in the house, nor a pound of butter, and everything else was in keeping. An abundance of good things was around them, and yet they had nothing comfortable and wholesome.
It is just so with some people here. Every facility is in the possession of this people for living in the very best manner, if they would only learn how, and practise upon that knowledge. How much do you have to pay for your cow's running on the range, or for the use of a lot? ”

“ There is no necessity for any persons living on bread and water. We have not a man at work for us but what has had means put into his hands sufficient to support from five to twenty persons, and many of them could lay up from five hundred to a thousand dollars a year, if they would use proper economy. ”

“ When you have done your day's work, take your axe, cut up the straw, throw a little meal on it, give it to the cow, and sit down and milk her yourself, unless your wife is a good hand to milk, and can attend to it better and more conveniently than you can; in that case, let her do the milking, but do not set six or eight years' old children to stripping the cows. ”

“ Some men do not know what to do with their means. You may take the poorest mechanic here, and one who has nothing but bread to eat, and you may see him paying half a dollar or a dollar for a meal of victuals at the Globe. You may see the barber shops crowded with our poor mechanics, who pay from three to five dollars a quarter for being shaved. I bought a razor, when I began to shave, that cost thirty-seven and a half cents, and used it for fifteen years. ”

“ So much of the bread is spoiled; there goes one quarter of the flour; it is wasted, and the bread is sour and disagreeable to eat; and the husband comes home and looks sour, and is sour, as well as the bread. He finds fault, and that makes the wife grieve, and there are feelings and unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the family. The husband may be a good man, and the wife may be a good woman, and try to please her husband, and to do as much as the old lady did, who said, "It was impossible for her to please her husband in baking bread ”

“ Others have six or eight cows, and seldom have any butter in the house; they do not take care of what they have.
Instead of people being poor, we already have too much, unless we take better care of it. I heard a man who is living in this city—one who has always been well off—state that he used to keep twelve cows when he first came here, and was often nearly destitute of milk and butter. ”

“ I have seen a great many persons live in the neglect of all the comforts of life, because they would not take hold and make themselves comfortable. Others do not know what to do with the comforts of life, when they have them. ”

“ The man then has to buy the bonnets, the linings, the dress patterns, &c., and also to hire them made; and he has to buy aprons, shoes, and stockings, and even the garters that are worn on the stockings. There is not judgment, economy, and force enough in some women, to knit their own garters. ”

“ Let us keep in the favour of the Lord, and be his friends, live to our covenants, love the Lord, and walk uprightly in all our acts and dealings, so that we will not be afraid to have them scanned by the Lord and His angels, and all good men on the earth ”

“ I have worked for nearly all the various grades of wages, and supported a family since I was quite young. I know how to live, and I have taught my brethren here how to live, and I know how many of them do live. ”

“ If this people will do as they are told, will live their religion, walk humbly before their God, and deal justly with each other, we will make you one promise, in the name of Israel's God, that you will never be driven from the mountains. ”

“ We pay our mechanics from two and a half to five dollars a day, and there is no necessity for many of them using more than fifty cents or one dollar a day throughout the year, Why do you not buy a cow? ”

“ They want to have money to go to market and buy everything ready made. They want to have somebody feed them. I have thought, many times, that some persons would not be satisfied, unless we baked plum puddings, and roasted beef for them, and then fed them while they were lounging in big easy chairs; and still perhaps they would think that they were ill treated, if we did not chew the meat for them. ”

“ He must feed the hogs, spin the wool, wash the pillowcases and sheets, and do everything else, or be bemeaned by his wife. I said to myself, I expect I shall be married when I am old enough, and if I get such an animal as you are, I will put hooks in her nose to lead her in a way you have not thought of. ”

“ They had not been in the house more than twenty minutes before the woman of the house went and brought out a pillow, and began to rail against her husband, saying, "He is a dirty, nasty man; he is the filthiest man in the world ”