JULY 283 



This is the process. A quantity of straw is placed in a heap and 

 soaked with buckets of water to soften it ; otherwise it would not 

 1 lie.' Buck, seated close by, draws from a bundle, which for the 

 last few days has been ' tempering ' in a pond, some of the broaches 

 that Rough Jimmy split a few months ago. These he sharpens at 

 either end, and then, holding the broach in both hands, wrings it 

 in the centre to make it pliable. When the broaches are prepared, 

 he and his assistant go to a heap of coarse hay which is handy. 

 Here Fairhead fixes a wisp of the hay on to an instrument called 

 a bond crank, that is, a bent iron with a hook at the end of it, 

 and two hand pieces of elder wood, so arranged that by holding 

 one in the left hand and turning the other with the right the 

 hook revolves and twists the hay into a long grass rope or bond 

 as it is deftly drawn from the heap by Buck. These bonds, 

 when of sufficient length, Buck winds into a rough spool with a 

 broach for the centre of it, much as a fishing line is wound on to a 

 stick. 



When enough of these spools are prepared he mounts the 

 tall ladder that is laid against the stack, and Fairhead brings him 

 a bundle of straw fastened with a rope, which bundle is secured 

 to the side of the stack by means of broaches, whereon it 

 rests. Dragging out handfuls of straw from the bundle, he lays 

 these neatly on the slope, tucking them in where necessary and 

 drawing them smooth with an instrument called a thatching 

 comb. Then he takes one of the bond-spools and, loosing the 

 end of it, lays the bond across the straw, fastening it in place by 

 the doubled up broaches, which, in shape and purpose, resemble 

 rough hairpins, driving them home into the stack by means of a 

 thatching mallet. For this covering up of haystacks two lines of 

 bonds are generally used, with others, which are arranged in a 

 kind of dog-tooth pattern at the ends of the stack. 



Buck and his assistant, beginning to work at this stack, which 

 may contain eighteen or twenty tons of hay, after breakfast, had 

 finished it by evening. For quick thatching, however, three 

 hands are required : one to make ready the bonds, broaches, &c., 



