The Country Gcntkinaii s l\Iagazinc 



H3 



Uhc J[arin. 



HARVESTING OF GRAIX CROPS. 



SHOULD the warm sunny days we have 

 for so long a period enjoyed, and the 

 rainless nights continue till the time when the 

 crops are ready to be harvested, that harvest- 

 ing ^yill be a comparatively easy task. And, 

 as has pretty often been said during the hay- 

 making season of the present year, in view of 

 the little labour demanded of the husbandman 

 in making the hay, that " it has almost made 

 itself;" so, under such circumstances as sup- 

 posed above, mil it be said of the corn crops, 

 they will almost harvest themselves. But it 

 is well to remember that " there is many a 

 slip between the cup and the lip," a proverb 

 peculiarly applicable to our climate, which in 

 its nomial condition — if we may use the tenn 

 — is characterised much more by its tendency 

 to change than its tendency to maintain for a 

 great length of time the same peculiarities. 

 Pleasant, then, as the weather has been of 

 late, with its sunny skies and its warm 

 breezes, we may see it changed, and so com- 

 pletely changed that we may have cloudy 

 skies and blustering blasts, and the pelting of 

 a pitiless rain. All this may not happen, but it 

 may ; and it is the province of the wise man 

 to consider the chances of loss and risk, as it 

 is his prudence to prepare and provide for 

 them. A few notes, therefore, on harvesting, 

 having special reference to the difficulties cast 

 in the way of quickly and economically per- 

 forming it in bad weather, will not, may not 

 be out of place. We can easily go back in 

 memory to the difficulties of harvesting in the 

 year i860, and the lessons of the disasters of 

 one season are not thrown away upon us, if 

 they urge us to prepare for those of another, 

 which may be in store for us. ^Vho can sa}" 

 but that much of the harvesting time of this 

 year may be characterised by precisely the 



same features which made the year named 

 above so miserably memorable. The very 

 fact, indeed, of the weather having been for so 

 long a period fine, makes it just the more 

 probable that a change will be coming upon 

 us in the contrary fashion. 



The cutting of corn — whether done by 

 machine or by hand — in fine weather, which has 

 not been previously battered down b y heavy 

 rains and winds, is an easy matter — literally 

 the labourer goes in and 7iniis, a true state- 

 ment, although a bad pun. But the case is 

 altogether different in a thoroughly bad 

 season, as our readers well know who have 

 had practical experience as to what a field of 

 corn then is. Twisted and torn, lying in all 

 directions from which the wind can blow — 

 some portions standing erect, some pro- 

 strated completely, some partially so, some 

 lying at one angle, some at another, some 

 parts as flat as if rolled, and all preserving a 

 position or condition the very antipodes of 

 what a fine standing field of corn really is, or 

 as the farmer wishes it to be. It is not easy 

 to go in to cut it, and cut it so that the standard 

 in the art of cutting to perfection may be easily 

 reached; this standard pointing to a condi- 

 tion in which the cut corn lies in regular 

 swathes, with heads all lying in one direction, 

 and with the straw unbroken. Indeed, in 

 such a field as we have described above, it is 

 difficult at first for the farmer to know how 

 and where to begin ; he must, at least, give 

 up all hope of having his corn cut so as to 

 be in regular swathe, and must con- 

 tent himself with having to cut as best he 

 can, finding, as he will find upon him, 

 the necessity to allow his men to cut 

 according to circumstances, these circum- 

 stances being such that they will not be able 



