CULTURE OP RYE. 107 



your hand out of the measure with a smart flirt to the right, 

 as full as you can grip, so that a little scatters about your feet. 

 Out with your right leg as you let your hand back to gather a 

 swing for the .upward stroke, which directly follows, scattering 

 the seed in a semi-circle, high and far abroad. Swing your fist 

 up, boy ! don't look at the chickens. You want to set the 

 kernels a-whirlin' ag'in' the sky ! then you can tell whether 

 you throw 'era smart, or not. The sower's step — mind — will 

 fetch your right arm back with a jerk, just in time with the 

 spat of your right foot forward ; that will keep your balance. 

 Get the sower's step, or you'll stagger, and tumble down, like 

 enough. And in making the cast, which must be done with 

 force — smartly — none of your old-country pottering over a six- 

 foot strip, sifting the grain around between your thumb and 

 finger, at a shilling a day — but sling your hand round as if 

 you were hitting something, so as to make the seed fall like 

 the clip of a mower's scythe, a rod wide. Let out a little 

 leak of seed at the right from your full hand, and open one, 

 two, three fingers in succession to let the grain through, and 

 spread it in front, and hang on to a pinch to carry over to the 

 left. Don't let your arm drop as you swing — you Guinea 

 man ! Keep your fist above your chin as long as there is a 

 kernel in it, and swing — swing boy — as if you meant to sling 

 your fist off!" Such were the cheery orders of the former 

 generation as to sowing, and a boy of twelve may get the 

 trick while feeding corn to the chickens across the door-yard. 

 In the field we had our deep dead furrows once in ten paces 

 as guides for our steps, and it required a bout and a half for a 

 boy to seed a land — up and down around the outside of the 

 land, and once along the crest, being careful to lap the scat- 

 terings of each cast of seed a little. It is hard work for a 

 youngster to lug a bail-basket or Shaker-pail of grain over 

 plowed ground. It might be done on the back of a steady 

 horse ; but an ambitious boy will take the job cheerfully, be- 

 cause it is a man's work. Indeed, there are many men who 

 say they can't sow grain, and many others who undertake it 

 that make but slobbering work. A good deal of skill and 

 practice is required to make a good seedsman not altogether 



