366 A FARMER'S YEAR 



people take the trouble to glean ; I suppose corn is so cheap that 

 the results are no longer worth the time expended. 



The shed is not yet up over the cattle-yard, but the posts have 

 been sunk into position to carry the roof. 



October 6. — To-day is dull, but there is no break in the 

 drought. Buck, whom I found hedge clipping, tells me that it is 

 about thirty-two years since there was such an autumn ' dry ' as . 

 that which prevails at present. In the season which he speaks 

 of, however, a good rain fell in the middle of harvest, for he 

 remembers that it started the potatoes into a second growth. 

 After that rain the dry was so sharp that very few farmers succeeded 

 in sowing their wheat before the following spring. 



These are the results of the thrashing up to the present : 

 From the three-and-a-half acre, Church Close field. No. 33, and 

 two acres of the Milestone field. No. 25, fifty-one coombs of 

 barley, or about nine coombs to the acre, of which forty-eight 

 coombs were sold at sixteen and sixpence per coomb. 



From the Glebe land five-acre. No. 40, forty-four coombs of 

 oats, which we shall consume at home — not a bad return from 

 this scaldy soil. 



From about two acres of the Home Farm field, No. 26, twenty 

 coombs of beans for seed and use, and from a little piece of 

 No. 25, about twelve coombs of wheat for seed. 



. From six acres of the Vinery field, No. 41 on Baker's, forty- 

 four coombs of barley. This is a poor return, but the barleys seem 

 to have suffered from the wet and cold at the beginning of the 

 year, and to have died too quickly owing to the summer drought, 

 with the result that a good many of the kernels are shrivelled. 



: At Bedingham we have thrashed thirty-five coombs of barley 

 off seven acres of land — only five coombs an acre — of which thirty- 

 four coombs sold at fifteen shillings a coomb. From three acres 

 of No. 13 we obtained thirty coombs of oats for home use, and 

 from a little surplus stack saved from something over an acre of 

 land about fifteen coombs of wheat 



