Way-Back: Taxes

You would truly have to be a hermit and a non-participant from the current wage/tax model not to know that taxes in 2012 take a significant portion of the average income, and even then you might have to be mighty ignorant not to realize that.  Online sources estimate that the average wage earner will pay about 30% of income in the form of some type of tax.  If you are above average then you may pay as much as 57%.
The various taxes would include: Federal income tax, State & local income taxes, sales tax, Social
security and Medicaid, property tax, fuel taxes, estate taxes, fees, licenses, etc.
This is a long way from the estimated tax burden in 1900 of 5.9%.  Most taxes of this time were ad-valorem taxes, that is to say, they were in the form of excise taxes and tariffs.  These type of taxes would already be part of the price of the goods purchased and would nearly be invisible.   In 1900 60% of the Federal revenue came from alcohol tax and 20% came from tobacco tax.  So if you were a heavy drinker and smoker you would be paying more in taxes than someone who neither drank nor smoked.
In our little calculation to determine what the purchasing power of the average wage earner was in 1900 to 2012 dollars I am going to make this simple.  I am not going to subtract anything from the 1900 wage for taxes because we are buying goods already with taxes in the price, this may not be entirely true in all cases and all taxes paid but I think it is close enough.  For 2012 we will have to subtract 30%. So...
1900 average wage = $438
2012 average wage = $43,633 - (43633*.30) 13,099 = $30,534 after taxes.
Our ratio then would be 30534/438 = 70.
To apply this ratio to the lb of coffee that we looked at earlier that sold for 10.5 cents, 10.5 * 70 = $7.35 per lb in 2012 dollars, after taxes.  That brings it a lot closer to the $4 per lb that we can buy the cheap stuff for at the local Walmart.  Of course, if you pay more in taxes than 30% that would bring the purchasing power even closer.  Keep this ratio in mind as we look at other goods from the 1901 Sears catalogue in future Way Back posts.

Garden

A cold and wet spring has put the garden behind schedule.  It is looking pretty good but with some of nights dipping into the low 40's and high 30's it's likely some of it will not mature.

There are lots of pumpkins.


The beans are producing well and we expect to pick them until frost.


There are a handful of arctic kiwi fruits.  There are two plants, a male and a female.  They both grow to beat the band early in the spring only to get pruned back by late spring frosts.  It's a yearly ritual.  These vines are reputed to bear 100 lbs of fruit a year.  I think I would be happy to pick 1 lb. 

There is no chance of getting a covering on the greenhouse this late in the year.  Cow cumbers and pumpkins on this side and tomatoes and cantaloupes on the other side have outgrown the boundaries by yards.  There are pumpkins growing to the far left in amongst the Zucchini.  In the foreground left are the radishes gone to seed, these are being given to the chickens.  Also the several varieties of lettuce just past the radishes are still producing and providing for good salads.


I am not sure what variety these cow cumbers are but we call them ghost cumbers because of their very light colouring.  They are not quite as good as regular varieties, the peel being a little tough, but are a novelty.


Some of the Early Girl tomatoes have turned orange since this picture was taken.  Crossing my fingers that we will get tomatoes.


I culled the old apple trees that never were able to mature fruit before winter weather.  I will replant come spring with trees that ripen fruit in August or September.  This one, a variety of McIntosh, I think, just barely makes it in time.  It is heavy laden and looking good right now.


We picked the Lodi apples yesterday and got about 6 boxes.  A very nice harvest that will go for applesauce and pies.


The Dolgo crabapples are looking good, as they do every year.

Adding to the wood pile

Slowly the wood pile is growing.  I know it is a little late in the year to be cutting green wood for the coming winter but promptly cutting and splitting it will maximize the drying process.  Much of this pictured is well dried.  I have burned half-dried wood before and believe me it is not worth it.  You still put the same effort into it and you are constantly tending the fire to keep the wood burning, you don't get as much heat from it and you creosote your chimney.  Just in case this wood does not reach the proper dryness I have quite a few standing dead trees that I will cut a little later and we may also buy a cord or two of seasoned wood.
Once upon a time I was cutting wood in the fall for the following winter, that's a nice way to do it.  For several years we did not burn much wood instead we used alternate heat sources but slowly depleted our wood pile and didn't bother to replenish it.  More on our $2500 folly in another post but suffice it to say we are back to burning wood now and I am just getting into the wood cutting groove.  My goal is to have two winter's wood cut and split come next winter.  Well, that's the stuff dreams are made of.



Some wood is just too much to split.  This piece, and there are others, is just to knotty, or should I say too naughty, to split.  I might be able to cram it into the stove but why bother, it will burn nicely in the outdoor fire pit.  Another month and it will be time to have a few outdoor fires with hotdogs and toasted marshmallows.


Some land just west of and below the orchard and garden area is the prime woodlot this year.  I hope to clear about a quarter acre.  Doing so will allow more late afternoon sun to reach the garden and once we have the stumps dozed out and the the land smoothed we can plant it to a small pasture.

This picture shows a portion of the pasture-to-be before cutting.  Once I have the triangular piece cut over I will post another picture.

Green Beans

Home canned green beans.   While both Mrs. Waggs and myself grew up eating our share of home canned goods, doing the canning ourselves is somewhat of a new experience.  Getting back to our roots and being self-sufficient.

Tayberry cordial

We won't have to wait 6 months to try this out.  It is ready now, but will taste much better once the weather turns colder.  There is just something warming about it when there is ice and snow outside and cordial inside.  Sorry I couldn't get a picture of a full glass, I felt a chill in the air.

Way-Back: wages

Trying to get an understanding of what people were paid and what it was really worth to them around 1900-1910 can be confusing.  A great deal has changed in the last 100-110 years and there is a plethora of websites that tell us how much better off we are today than they were then.  I am not so sure that we can buy more today with our wages than we could then.  For sure we have have lot more goods to choose from and probably have a lot more available food stuffs both in season and out of season but I am mostly talking about purchasing power verses earning power.  The formula for this seems simple enough, how much did a person earn for the hours worked and how much did goods, services and other expenses cost in relation to the hours worked.  I see no reason to make the formula much more complicated than this but we must include in 'other expenses' the taxes paid because they play a more significant role today than they did, that is my opinion although it seems simple enough when you consider that they did not pay social security, medicare/medicaid or income tax.  Sure, maybe we are getting our money's worth for those taxes paid and maybe we aren't.  I am not trying to make political commentary but only do a wage comparison betwixt the two eras, today and 1900-1910.
Wages seem to be about $250 to $600 per year around 1900.  Average of all industries was $438.  By 1910 they increased to a range from $325 to $750 per year, with the average of all industries being $574. It appears 10 hour days were fairly common although the trend toward 8 hour days was starting.  In the 1800's 12 hour days were the norm as it had been for centuries.  At least in this respect I think we are better off today, I much prefer the shorter days.
Construction workers seem to be toward the higher end as well as government workers.  Textile and farm workers toward the lower end.  Health care/medical services workers averaged $256/yr in 1900. 
In an earlier post I mentioned that $750 dollars (the upper end of wages in 1912) would be worth in silver about $16,000 today, that's 577 ounces of silver x $28.  Silver and gold were part of the money then.  In gold, the value today would be much more, about $58,700.  There was about .048375 ounces per dollar.  750 x .048375 x $1620 = $58,775.  Not really relevant to what we are looking at because in 1900-1910 gold and silver dollars were equal in purchasing power buying the same amount but interesting none-the-less how their relative values have changed over time.  If you were a working man in 1900 and saved one gold dollar every year (about 1/2 a day's wage at the time) for the next 33 years (1933 was the year gold coinage was removed by usage by gov't) you would have had $33 (about 16 days labor at $2 per day) in gold, not much changed.  If you hid away your 33 gold dollars instead of turning them in you would have had $55.83 dollars worth of gold when it was revalued a year or so later.  There the value stayed until 1971 when it was allowed to float free against the dollar. Today that 1.596 ounces of gold would be worth $2,586 (a little more than 15 days labor if you are making $168 per day, the current average).  So what has retained its value better, gold or the dollar?
For 2010 the SSA lists the average national wage as $41,673.83.  This was a 2.36 % increase over 2009.  Since there were no figures more current than 2010 we will extrapolate for 2012 by using the same percent of increase for each year, giving us $43,663.  I think this is close enough to say that the 2012 wage is 100 times the average 1900 wage and would be suitable for calculating the price of 1900 goods by also multiplying it by 100 or simply moving the decimal over two places.  For 2012 equivalent of 1910 prices we can multiple the 1910 prices by 76, a little more complicated but easy to do with a calculator.
So in the example below, clipped from the 1901 Sears catalogue, we have the prices of coffees.  The best price shown is when you buy 10 lbs, the price is 10.5 cents per lb or the 2012 price equivalent would be $10.50 per pound.  You won't have to look hard to find coffee now for about $4.00 per lb and that is in a 33 oz can.  You can certainly find coffee for $10 a lb if you want to pay that much but remember we are looking the at the cheapest 1901 price not the most expensive which goes for the 2012 equivalent of $28 a lb.  Even with the today's taxes figured in, 2012 offers the better price.  Chalk one up 2012.


In the next Way Back we will take a closer look at taxes then and now.

Sunday drive

Yesterday Mrs. Waggs & I took a Sunday drive.  We left at 9:30 AM and made it home at 5:00 PM.  We traveled 129 miles and never were more than 20 miles from home, as the crow flies.  We drove around the lake, something Mrs. Waggs has never done and something that has been more than 35 years since I had done.
The sky was a little hazy as can be seen in the following photos.

This pic shows the lower east side of lake.


From the east side looking north.  Lots of sail boats were out.

This is the south end of the lake looking west, toward the populated side.

An old homestead.  We would have explored this but there is a large modern home just out of the picture to the right.

My favorite house of the whole trip in one of the small settlements near the lake.  Access to these communities is by boat only in the winter.

The remnants of an old log cabin.  This place was literally built on a small leveled spot on the side of a gully.  Old lilac bushes were evident as well as this patch of sweat peas.  Somewhere I have a picture of this with the log cabin still standing. I don't know if I can find it but if I do I will try to get it posted.

On the down-hill side of the cabin was this rock retaining wall.  It's hard to see in this pic.

Just a little further back was this building, not sure if it was another house or a shed.  At one time it was two stories but it is fast becoming one.  We did not go into it, it looked like it could come down at anytime.  We would have loved to explore this homesite a little better but were pressed for time.  We were never lost but were a little bewildered a time or two and got on the wrong road, which cost us about an hour of time.  That's what we get for using a map nearly 40 years old, even on the back side of the lake roads change.

The lake side of the mountain where we live.  From steep cliff it looks like half of it fell into the lake at one time.

Coming down out of the mountains into civilized country again, the backwaters of the lake or river.

And one last photo of the backwaters.

Way-Back: self heating iron

This iron is self heating.  In the container on the front goes gas.  It was pressurized with air pumped in from the spigot on the back (I think.) and lit.  No need to set this on the stove top every few minutes to keep warm, but stand near the back door and throw it outside if the fire should escape the combustion chamber.  This model called a Monitor (apparently after the ironclad of recent fame) was patented in 1903.  Electric irons were in use by 1912, and maybe a little before, if you had the money.


This photo clip from the 1912 Sears catalogue shows some of the irons available at the time.


The $2.65 asked for the electric iron was more than a day's wage for most people, here it is called a bargain price.  No gas powered versions shown here but you could get a charcoal burner version for 78 cents.  Don't miss the asbestos lined irons.

Wages about this time averaged somewhere around $750 per year.  If you were paid in silver coin this would be about $16,000 at today's value.  10 hour days were the norm.  You could figure on about 26 cents per hour or up to 36 cents if you were in the construction trade.  Just remember there was no income tax or social security deductions.

Wine Equipment

As expected the wine equipment arrived on scheduled Friday.  We decided to go with making 1 gallon batches of wine to start with.  It's a lot better to ruin 1 gallon rather than 3 or 5 gallons.  We can always upgrade our equipment later, once we get the hang of it.  It shouldn't be too difficult, fermentation is a natural process, anything we do can only make it better, right?

Beginning with the green wine bottle and working clockwise, we bought a dozen green wine bottles appropriate for making fruit/red wines.  A couple of 1 gallon glass secondary fermentation jugs. A 2 gallon primary fermentation bucket.  On top of this bucket are number of various sanitizers, yeast, acid adjustment, pectin enzyme, yeast nutrient, campden tablets, air locks and stoppers.  The big red thingy is a corking machine.  We decided to get the medium priced corker.  This one is mostly metal, the cork holder is plastic or nylon, hopefully it will hold up to regular use.  Available for this corker is a capping attachment so that when we enter the brewing phase we can have a decent bottle capper. Still in the package is a small  auto syphon - something usable with the gallon jugs. The upright tubes contain a hydrometer (for measuring specific gravity), a cylinder for holding the sample when taking specific gravity and a wine thief (collection tube for taking samples). A bag of corks and a syphon tube.  Having watched the included video I have already made a list for another order for more equipment. A thermometer (which I meant to get with this order but forgot), a couple more secondary fermentation jugs and a bottling wand (to ease bottle filling).  A couple of batches and we will be ready for more bottles too. 

Perhaps this weekend I will be able to get the first batch of Tayberry wine started.

Zucchini

The Zucchini is coming on fast.  This is yesterday's harvest.


Chop it up and put it on the dryer.


This morning it is ready to put in jars.  Makes great stews and keeps well.

Berries

It's been a good year for berries.  The rainy spring has apparently agreed with them.  We have a bumper crop of Tay berries.  For those who don't know, and I think many do not, Tay berries are a cross between Logan Blackberries and Raspberries.  They were developed near the Tay River in Scotland, hence the name.

When they are ripe they develop a purply like colour.  The darker one above is nearly ripe.  The red berry has a day or two to go.


Last year we didn't get but a handful of berries, the harsh winter cold with little snow cover froze the canes back to just a couple.  Like raspberries they fruit on the previous year's canes.  This year is a different story.

What can you do with Tay berries?  3 quarts of Tay berry cordial comes to mind.  In a couple of weeks these will be a delectable treat.
Other uses are the same as for raspberries or blackberries. Cobbler, pie or wine.  We have not tried the wine yet but are about to venture into that.  Tomorrow my wine making equipment arrives and thus will begin a new venture.  I don't know if we can wait 6 months or a year for the wine to mature.


The blue berry bushes are also doing well, now that we have effectively fenced out the deer, the bushes are growing adding some size and there is a respectable showing of fruit.  We never had a problem with deer eating the Tay berry bushes, they are just too thorny.  One has to be quick to get the blue berries though, birds like them best of all it seems.  They pluck them as fast as they ripen.  We will either have to throw up some bird netting or overwhelm them with volume.

One of Mrs. Waggs favourite berries, the native blackcap.  We have a volunteer bush near the tool shed. We are hoping to establish a few more bushes in the vicinity.