HARVEST AND GLEANING TIME 185 



glean when the crops are off. Sheep find 

 sweet feed in between the rows of stubble 

 a bite here and a bit there, as they move 

 along ; and the peewits follow the sheep. All 

 through the year, the land, no matter whether 

 it be in cultivation or not, provides something 

 for the various creatures on or about it. One 

 lot of gleaners we have missed of late years 

 the women and children that at one time 

 one used to see coming home at night from 

 the fields with their bundles of wheat on their 

 heads. There may not be any necessity for 

 this now, for bread at least is cheap, which 

 is certainly a matter to rejoice over. And 

 customs, no doubt, have changed with the 

 times, for old time-honoured customs have 

 of late not been considered to constitute pre- 

 scriptive rights. The custom of gleaning may 

 be carried out now in some places remote 

 from great labour centres, but in our own 

 immediate neighbourhood it has died out. 



It is the same with hedge gleaners ; they 

 are no longer to be seen with their bundles of 

 dead wood going home along the roads. Not 

 that their wreckage was taken from the hedge ; 

 it was picked up between the copse and the 

 wood near to it. If you walk along country 



