328 A FARMER'S YEAR 



seeds seem to have taken, not excepting the chicory and other 

 herbs, which appear everywhere among the grasses. 



September 3. The layer in the barley which we were 

 cutting at Baker's yesterday on No. 41 is so thick that the 

 straw, if well saved, will really be almost as good as hay. Take 

 them all round, the crops are wonderfully heavy this year. There 

 is so much of what the men call ' boolk ' that the difficulty is to 

 get them on to the stack. 



To-day I went out shooting with a neighbour. The partridges 

 seem to be rather scarce, and the sun was terribly hot. Never do 

 I remember feeling the effects of heat and thirst in this country 

 more than I did towards the close of our tramp this afternoon. 

 In a day's September shooting the sportsman walks over a good 

 many miles, especially if he happens to be the right- or left-hand 

 gun. Partridge-shooting in a hot autumn is very different from 

 partridge-driving or covert-shooting later in the year, when the gun 

 merely moves from place to place and stands until the birds come 

 over him. I am inclined to believe, also, that the advent of cycles 

 (or is it perchance the advent of age ?) makes people suffer more 

 from the exertion of walking than they were wont to do. All the 

 summer long one has been accustomed to roll from spot to spot 

 upon a bicycle I even use mine for going about the farm so that 

 when it comes to a long day's honest trudging, with many a fence 

 to scramble through and no friendly wheel to help, one feels the 

 change. It is certain that people who, before the invention 

 of these Heaven-sent machines, were devoted to walking now walk 

 no more, and I believe that soon it will be difficult to induce 

 the children who are growing up to-day to put one foot before 

 the other. The same thing may be noticed in countries where 

 everybody rides. Thus, in Africa I have known men have 

 their horses saddled in order to carry them a couple of 

 hundred yards. 



To-day we are busy getting up barley, and have finished 

 building the wheat stack at All Hallows. 



