125 



they got a breakfast and dinner of bread and beer, and one 

 half lippie of oatmeal every day for supper, which they 

 generally took up entire at the end of harvest. At 

 that time the harvest used to cost about 5 s. per acre, in- 

 cluding all expences. Some time after that, the harvest 

 wages rose to 30 s. for the men, and 20 s. for the women, 

 more or less, as the farmer and they could agree ; but the 

 expence was siibject to variation, according to the price 

 of meal, and the length of the harvest, from a favour- 

 able season, or the contrary, and it has been so high as 

 9 s. or IDS. per acre. About fifteen or sixteen years ago, 

 some men came to the Carse as contractors, and agreed to 

 cut down the crops at so much per acre, but that plan did 

 not continue long. 



About six years ago, another practice took place in 

 that district, which continues to this day. It is called 

 threading, and now almost universally prevails. By this 

 plan the reapers are paid in money, without victuals, so 

 much for every threave they cut down. For a threave of 

 wheat, consisting of twenty-eight sheaves, each sheaf mea- 

 suring thirty inches round, 4 d. ; and for a threave of bar- 

 ley, oats, or pease, of twenty-four sheaves, each thirty 

 inches round, 3 d. 



This mode of harvesting is certainly of very great 

 advantage to the country in general : for whole fami- 

 lies turn out together, men, women, and children ; they 

 bring their provisions with them, remain in the field the 

 whole day ; the old teach the young to cut down ; every 

 one does something ; and according to what they per- 

 form, they are paid. A hundred, or a hundred and fifty 

 persons, young and old, may frequently be seen in a 

 field at the same time, and besides the advantage of get- 

 ting such a quantity of ripe corn cut down in a day, per- 

 ' ' -_ '>* , 



