Chiefly Thatching 
The cow-stalls, which we had to go into, had 
been newly whitened inside, I thought. In 
fact they were lime-washed twice in every year— 
in May and Oétober; that is to say, when the 
cows begin to be turned out o’ nights, and a 
second time when summer is over and the cows 
are brought in to shelter again. 
At tea that day Mr. Smith told many details 
about the old pot-shop at Farnborough which 
have been included in the narrative of his father, 
William Smith. Then also I got a word, unknown 
to me before, but full of a sort of rustic suggestive- 
ness—pea-hacking. Pea-hacking was said to 
mean the harvesting of field peas. My uncle 
spoke of a woman he remembered doing this 
work with sickle as well as fag-hook, and working 
at it as fast as any man. 
He also told of hand-reaping, which was 
priced at 75. 6d. an acre, he said. As he was an 
eager advocate of machinery—perhaps in some 
resentment still against the machinery riots 
which had hampered farmers so badly in his 
boyhood—he was careful to point out how badly 
the price for hand-reaping compared with that 
for machine-cutting. For with one horse a man 
on a machine could cut from five to seven acres 
a day. 
Moreover, if they were any good at their 
work, hand-reapers wanted to keep on at it and 
107 
