PATROONS AND LORDS OF THE MANOR 49
floor. On one side ran a manger. Cattle and
horses stood in rows with their heads toward the
threshing-floor. "There was a prodigious large
box or open chest in one side built up, for holding
the corn after it was threshed, and the roof which
was very lofty and spacious was supported by large
cross beams. From one to the other of these was
stretched a great number of long poles so as to
form a sort of open loft, on which the whole rich
crop was laid up."
Altogether it is an attractive picture of peace
and plenty, of hospitality and simple luxury, that
is drawn by this visitor to the Schuyler homestead.
We see through her eyes its carpeted winter rooms,
its hall covered with tiled oilcloth and hung with
family portraits, its vine-covered stoeps, provided
with ledges for the birds, and affording "pleasant
views of the winding river and the distant hills."
Such a picture relieves pleasantly the arid waste
of historical statistics.
But the reader who dwells too long on the pic-
turesque aspects of manors and patroonships is
likely to forget that New Netherland was peopled
for the most part by colonists who were neither pa-
troons nor lords of manors. It was the small pro-
prietors who eventually predominated on western