\IG.J BARLEY HARVKST. 



it is apt to sprout. In the wet harvest of JSOI, 

 this crop in Norfolk presented a most melancholy 

 spec'-lacle ; three or four wet and very warm days 

 made it grow to such a degree, that when the 

 swaths came to he turned, they looked as if feathers 

 had been strewed along every swath. Many thou- 

 sand acres were thus damaged : those farmers 

 escaped best who lifted the swaths before they 

 were dry enough to turn ; they raised them lightly 

 from the ground with forks to let air in ; a prac- 

 tice worth recommending. After the fields are 

 cleared, they are raked with an instrument gene- 

 rally called a dew -rake, from its being used in the 

 dew of the morning : a man draws it by a broad 

 leather strap. This is a bad contrivance ; the 

 work goes on slowly, and, being hard, the men 

 often negledl doing it well, and much corn is left 

 in the field. Instead of it, there is in some coun- 

 ties a machine, called a horse-rake : a rake ten or 

 twelve feet long, drawn by one horse. This ma- 

 chine expedites the work greatly, at the same time 

 that it does it much better. The use of it should 

 be universal ; for one will work against twenty 

 men, as I have experienced ; and the price is not 

 above five guineas and an half complete. 



Barley and oats in some countries are reaped, an 

 excellent custom where they cut low enough ; for 

 it is not with these as with wheat, which yields a 

 crop of stubble ; if reaped with spring corn, what 

 is left in the field is lost to the farm-yard. But by 

 reaping, some of the evil of a wet harvest is re- 

 medied., 



