] 



VI. Description of a ternporarj/ Rick to secure Corn in 

 Sheaves in the Fields till quite dry ; also Clover, Peas, 

 and Beam. By William Jones, Esq. of Foxdown- 

 Hill, near fVellington, Somersetshire*. 



Sir, X HE very unusual quantity of rain that fell during 

 the months of August and Se|Uember 1609, with scarcely 

 two (lays of dry weather following, in this neighbourhood, 

 put farmers to the necessity of having recourse to various 

 modes of preserving their corn ; and as I understand the 

 Society of Arts has offered a gold medal for the cheapest 

 and best mode of harvesting corn, and also for making hay 

 in wet weather, superior to any hitherto practised, I beg 

 leave to communicate some experiments I made last sum- 

 mer, and the result of them. In the first place, I put some 

 wheat in small round ricks, or wind-rows, made in the 

 common way of this county; but afterwards recollecting 

 that the uncommon wetness of the ground might render 

 the under part damp, I thought it prudent to examine them, 

 (about ten days after they were set up,) and found my ap- 

 prehensions so well founded, that. I had the whole spread 

 abroad ; and have no doubt that, if they had remained a little 

 longer, the corn would have been materially injured, not 

 the bottom only, for it had contracted dampness a great 

 way up the ricks, insomuch that I turned my attention to 

 devise some better ni^ide of preserving my barley in case 

 the weather continued so rainy, as it afterwards proved. 

 I had observed in some wet seasons before this, that niany 

 of our farmers, not being able to get their barley dry enough 

 to put into a large rick, had set up narrow ricks, containing 

 the produce of an acre or two, each in different parts of the 

 same field it was grown, for the sake of expedition ; and 

 though iome straw was put under them, yet the bottom 

 contracted a great degree of dampness, so as to occasion it 

 to smell old, and the clover was killed where these ricks 

 had stood. My object was to prevent both these injuries; 

 and it occurred to me, that four gate-hurdics would answer 

 both purposes, bv setting the two out-.ide ones perpendi- 

 cular, and two middle ones inclining against and supporting 

 each other. These hurdles are usually eight feet long; the 

 two heads in which the four bars are mortised have pointed 



• From Transactinns of the Society for the EncouTai^emenl of Arts, Manti- 



faclnres, and Commerce, for 1811. The silver medal of the Society was 



voted to Mr. Jones for this communication. 



ends 



