VII.] STACKING. 



cannot assemble your army of men, women, girls, 

 boys and horses or oxen, and disband them to-day, 

 call them out again to-morrow, send them away 

 in the morning, and bring them forth again in 

 the afternoon ; hay-cutting and making and 

 stacking, form an operation that must be begun, 

 continued, and ended, at one spell, or the hay is 

 more or less spoiled. Now, the business of corn- 

 topping may, with very little injury, be a fort- 

 night or three weeks, or even a month, in hand; 

 for, though one would wish to do the whole at 

 the precise minute when the plants are in the 

 proper state, no great injury, nor perhaps any 

 injury at all, arises to the ears if the corn be 

 never topped at all, provided the intervals be 

 sufficiently wide ; and I knew a Quaker, in Long 

 Island, who never did top his corn, but who cut 

 the whole plant oif close to the ground, after the 

 blades had changed colour, tied them in small 

 sheaves, and set them up in shocks to dry. 

 When perfectly dry, he pulled off the ears and 

 put by the whole plant for fodder ; top, blades, 

 stalks and all. 



126. So that there is no great harm that can 

 arise from a protraction of the work of topping. 

 You may choose your weather, both for topping 

 and housing, and the long and narrow stack, above 

 described, enables you to stack and to thatch 

 as you go. Generally, the application of the tops 



