15.  Every household shall keep all instruments and tools fit for the tillage of the Earth, either for planting, reaping or threshing.  Some households, which have many men in them, shall keep ploughs, carts, harrows, and such like.  Other households shall keep spades, pick-axes, pruning hooks, and such like, according as every family is furnished with men to work therewith.  And if any Master or Father of a Family be negligent herein, the Overseer for that Circuit shall admonish him between them two.  If he continue negligent, the Overseer shall reprove him before all the people.  And if he utterly refuse, then the ordering of that Family shall be given to another, and he shall be Servant under the Task-master till he reform.

16.  Every Family shall come into the field with sufficient assistance at seed time, to plough, dig and plant, and at harvest time to reap the fruits of the Earth, and to carry them into the Storehouses, as the Overseers order the work and the number of workmen.  If any refuse to assist in the work, the Overseer shall ask the reason; and if it be sickness or any distemper that hinders them, they are freed from such service; if mere idleness keep them back, they are to suffer punishment according to the Laws against Idleness.

LAWS AGAINST IDLENESS.

17.  If any refuse to learn a trade, or refuse to work in seed-time, or refuse to be a waiter in storehouses, and yet will feed and clothe himself with other men’s labors, the Overseer shall first admonish him privately.  If he continue idle, he shall be reproved openly before all the people by the Overseer, and shall be forbore with a month after this reproof.  If he still continue idle, he shall be whipped, and let go at liberty for a month longer.  If still he continue idle, he shall be delivered into the Task-master’s hand, who shall set him to work for twelve months, or till he submit to right order.  The reason why every young man shall be trained up in some work or other, is to prevent pride and contention; it is for the health of their bodies; it is a pleasure to the mind to be free in labors one with another; and it provides plenty of food and all necessaries for the Commonwealth.

LAWS FOR STOREHOUSES.

18.  In every Town and City shall be appointed Storehouses for flax, wood, leather, cloth, and for all such commodities as come from beyond seas.  These shall be called General Storehouses, whence every particular Family may fetch such commodities as they want, either for their own use in their house, or for to work in their trades, or to carry into the Country Storehouses.

19.  Every particular house and shop in a town or city shall be a particular Storehouse or Shop, as now they be.  And these shops shall either be furnished by the particular labor of that family according to the trade that family is of, or by the labor of other lesser families of the same trade, as all shops in every town are now furnished.