96 



THE BATH ROAD 



OLDFMIL. 



this bai'D, iu the shape of a Hail, now occasionally used 

 for threshing out l)eaus. 



Very few people will understand the meaning of the 

 old English word " flail," because it is almost fifty 

 years since that old-world agricultural implement was 



in general use. Until steam was 

 introduced as a labour-saving ap- 

 pliance in agricultural work, corn 

 was invariably threshed out of the 

 ear by wooden instruments like 

 that pictured here, consisting of 

 two unequal lengths of rounded 

 wood of the size of an ordinary 

 broomstick, connected by leathern 

 loops. 



The farm hands who used this 

 primitive contrivance grasped hold 

 of the longer stick, and, brandish- 

 ino- it about over their heads, 

 brouoht the hinojed end down re- 

 peatedly on the wheat spread out 

 on the threshing floor ; thus, with the expenditure of 

 considerable time and muscular strength, separating 

 the grains from the ears. As the "business end" of 

 the flail is constructed so as to swing in every 

 direction, it is obvious that the mastery of it was 

 only acquired with practice, and at the cost of sundry 

 whacks on the head brought on himself by the 

 clumsy novice. Indeed, it is an instrument requiring 

 particular dexterity in manipulation. 



Longford obtains its name from the marshy ford 

 over one of the sluo-oish branches of the Colne, whicii 



