190 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. XIV. 



The wind should be in the back, or on the right hand of the mower, so 

 as to keep the corn a little from him ; but at whatever side of the field the 

 work is to commence, a breadth of corn should be cut down equal to the whole 

 band of mowers, and the better practice is to cut it diagonally across the 

 ridges, from right to left, or to that side which will cast it from, instead of 

 towards, the standing corn. Two mowers are generally put upon a ridge, 

 each followed by a woman, to make bands, take up the corn, and place it 

 in the hands of the bandster, who is followed by another woman to rake up 

 the straggling eai's ; and, when the crop is good, the mowers will keep these 

 women and the bandsters so hard at work, that the bands should be always 

 previously prepared ; for the sweep of a good scythe-man is from 7 to 8 

 feet, and when the corn stands fair, his forward cut is from 12 to 15 inches. 

 The corn is cut closer to the ground by the scythe than it is commonly done 

 by the sickle, and it occasions less waste by shedding, when the grain is 

 over-ripe. Another advantage is, that the straw is not crushed as done with 

 the hand in reaping with the sickle ; and, being thus less compressed, the 

 grain is more open to the action of the air, consequently dries more readily, 

 and becomes sooner ready for the stack. The sickle, however, lays the 

 swathes more regularly ; and the scythe cannot be efficiently employed upon 

 crops that are much laid and entangled, nor upon ground that is not per. 

 fectly even. 



Two good scythe-men, with their attendants, will mow, bind, and stook, 

 upon an average, about three imperial acres of all the corn crops within a 

 working day of ten hours ; which is something more than double the work 

 which can be performed with the sickle. A band of three mowers, three 

 gatherers, three bandsters, and one raker, is, however, the most economical 

 number that can be employed ; as one girl can rake up the refuse corn for 

 the whole of them *. 



An instrument called the HainauU Scythe has, within these few years, 

 been introduced from Flanders, where it is generally used for the reaping 

 of corn, and has attracted so much attention, that two young farmers were 

 brought over from that country in 1825, by the Highland Society, for the 

 purpose of instructing our labourers in its use. They exhibited the mode 

 of working with it in many of the northern counties, and details of the result 

 having been submitted to a committee of the Societv, the report stated — 

 " that their inquiries warranted them in assuming the saving to be from one- 

 fourth to one-third of the ordinary expense of reaping by the sickle." This 

 was upon an average of different trials ; one of the most unfavourable of 

 which assumed that a labourer with the scythe will cut a quantity equal to 

 that cut by two good reapers with the sickle in the same lime t. Eating 



* Trans, of the Highland Soc, N. S., vol. iv. p. 192. 



t See the Transactions of the Highland Soc, N. S. vol. i, p. 247 ; and The 

 Farmer's Mag., vol, xxvi, p. 339. 



