234 A FARMER'S YEAR 



and sand-martins are vanished away. This morning I found 

 out where they go to, for in front of the Lodge, under the shelter 

 of the Vineyard Hills, they were skimming to and fro by scores, 

 waiting doubtless until the nor'-easter has blown itself out. Those 

 of them which are breeding about this house put in an occasional 

 appearance to see that their nests are safe, sit for a little while 

 shivering on the railings, and then fly off again. Not the oldest 

 man upon the place can recollect so cold a June, and certainly 

 there has been nothing so consistently bitter and sunless within 

 my own experience. 



To-day we are cutting out beet on All Hallows field, No. 29, 

 and Home Farm field, No. 22. The steam-saw also is still going 

 merrily, while Robson, the jobbing carpenter, is ' making a pre- 

 paration ' to begin the shed over the unenclosed portion of the 

 cow-yard. It seems a tremendous task for one man to undertake 

 by himself, but once the materials are delivered for him, by the 

 help of a rope and pulley and some stout iron bolts, with time he 

 will do it all, and in such a fashion that, unless someone pulls it 

 down, his work will be standing sixty years hence. 



June 15, The north-easterly gale is still blowing over a 

 shivering world. As the ploughman Peachey says, it is more like 

 after Michaelmas than four months before it, except that we rarely 

 get it so cold between Michaelmas and Christmas as it is to-day. 

 The actual temperature, however, does not go below forty-five in 

 the daytime. I fear that all hopes of a good corn harvest must 

 be abandoned, as the grain will not set well in such weather. 

 According to present appearances, also, the roots will be small and 

 backward. 



To-day the sheep were dipped as a preventive of fly, for the 

 bluebottle, to which most smells seem but as perfume, cannot bear 

 the odour of the poisonous stuff wherein their fleeces are soaked. 

 The process is rather curious : first the flock, as is usual on these 

 great domestic occasions, are penned in the barn. Here two men 

 seize the sheep one by one and plunge them legs upwards into a 



