214 



BRITISH HUSBANDRY. 



[Ch. XV. 



loose and friable : great care is also necessary in cleaning the roots 

 from the earth before the crop is thrashed. They are then left in the swathe 

 for a few days, if the weather be dry, but are occasionally turned, and are 

 afterwards bound into very small sheaves, either with ropes of straw or 

 yarn, or else with hop-bine, or with haulm twisted from peas, with which 

 they are occasionally intermixed. These ropes are laid upon the ground 

 behind the reapers, who place the sheaves upon them with the heads all one 

 way, for the convenience of the bandsters, who then set up in a little 

 standing five or six together, but in such manner as to allow them the full 

 benefit of the air; and if heavy rain should not intervene, they may be 

 ready for the stack within ten days or a fortnight, according to tlie strength 

 of the air and sunshine to which they have been exposed. Still greater 

 delay is however occasioned in moist seasons, from the extreme difficulty 

 of drying the haulm, and it lias been therefore recommended to carry the 

 crop off the field immediately, and stook it in some other place, so as to 

 ensure the sowing of tlie wheat in due season *. If the sheaves be piled iu 

 the manner of a small, round stack, and so placed as to allow the air to 

 pass through them, they may however be kept during a long time in the 

 field without incurrinor material dancrer. 



AVhen carried to the rick-yard, the beans are stacked in the same manner 

 as wheat, and when the boss is placed in the centre of the rick — as described 

 in the preceding chapter — they may be considered out of further danger 

 from mould or heating, oven if they should not be yet perfectly dry. It is, 

 indeed, so difficult to exhale their succulence, that they require a greater 

 degree of care than any other kind of grain, and therefore stacks are some- 

 times constructed for them with divisions in the body of the rick, composed 

 of cross-rails at separate heights, which prevent the pressure of any greater 

 weight than the load contained in each division ; and these separate por- 

 tions being thus kept a little apart from each other, admit the air freely 

 between the sheaves. AVe have seen an estimate of the charge of an 

 oblong frame of this kind, the dimensions of which are, in length of the 

 square 30 feet, and 5 feet round at each end; being thus 40 feet at the 

 base, and about 44 feet long by 18 feet in height at the eaves. The cost, 

 including the charge of the staddles, was calculated at less than 12/., and 

 would probably last during many years. Tiie annexed section will afford 

 an idea of its construction. 



\\TVvr^ 



* Gen. Rep. of Scotland, vol. i. p. 523; Sinclair's Code of Husbandry, 3rd edit. p. 399' 

 Berwickshire Rep., p. 257. 



