332 A FARMER'S YEAR 



Peachey said to me to-day, ' Casting don't fare to be no manner of 

 use.' To give one example : last year it took the produce of 

 about twelve acres of land to fill the All Hallows barn with barley, 

 whereas this year the crop from under seven acres is all that it 

 will hold. 



September 8. — Yesterday we were carting barley and wheat 

 on Baker's, and on going over the field I came to the conclusion 

 that we cannot finish harvest for another week, even if the weather 

 holds. It was very hot and dry, and to-day is still hotter. The 

 sun has a burning quality about it, owing, I suppose, to the thin 

 parched atmosphere through which its rays penetrate- -the kind of 

 quality, I imagine, that gives people sunstroke. It is hard, how- 

 ever, to say what does produce sunstroke, for in Southern Africa, 

 where the sun is very hot, I never heard of a case of it, and during 

 all the years that I lived there I wore nothing except an ordinary 

 cloth or felt hat, whereas for the last few days I have been glad 

 to fill the crown of a Panama straw with cabbage leaves. 



Here is a curious instance of the power of an English sun. In a 

 Norfolk village with which I am acquainted lived a man, a retired 

 soldier, who, when serving in India, had married a native woman, 

 and brought her home to England. This woman, while working 

 in the fields at harvest time, was struck by the sun and died. 

 Certainly it seems strange that she, who had passed her youth 

 beneath its most terrific rays, should have fallen a victim to them 

 here in foggy Britain. 



To-day we made an attempt to use the reaper to cut the 

 barley on All Hallows field, No. 36. It proved a total failure, and 

 had to be abandoned, for not only do the horses tread the corn 

 a good deal, but the straw, being twisted and bowed, the knives 

 snip off an enormous number of ears quite close to the grain. In 

 walking round after the machine I picked up a quantity of these, 

 which in all probability will be an utter loss, as the rake will not 

 rake them and the fork will not lift them. To cut this barley 

 with the reaper would mean the loss of at least two coomb an 



