146 SKETCHES OF RURAL AFFAIRS. 



colour. Therefore, weather permitting, the experienced 

 farmer takes care to have it immediately shaken out 

 and tedded, and perhaps thrown about once or twice 

 in the course of the same day. Towards evening the 

 rakers, working in contrary directions, gather it into 

 long narrow rows, called wind-rows, and afterwards into 

 small heaps, called grass-cocks, in order to preserve it 

 from dew or rain. In this state it is left for the night. 

 These are the first day's operations ; and as the mowers 

 continue their toil, there will be, of course, similar work 

 going on in their rear every day. But if you follow the 

 process by which the first cut, grass is rendered fit for 

 the stack, you observe that the next day's proceedings 

 are as follows. 



As soon as the dew is off the grass, the little heaps of 

 hay or grass-cocks are loosely shaken out to be further 

 dried by the sun and wind, and thus they are left, while 

 the hay-makers go on with the new work the mowers 

 are hourly making for them. In the afternoon, how- 

 ever, the rakers return, and again put up the grass which 

 had been shaken out. They now collect it into larger 

 heaps, called liand-cocks. In this state it is tolerably 

 protected from dew or rain, and is thus left for the night. 

 On the third day, it is sometimes carried without further 

 process to the stack ; but if not considered (sufficiently 

 dry it is again tedded, and then gathered into still larger 

 heaps, (sometimes called colls,) and carried on the fourth 

 day. In this way the work is carried on, and the pro- 

 cess renewed day after day until the fields are cleared. 

 Some descriptions of grass require much more time in 

 drying than others ; and this circumstance, together 

 with the many delays occasioned by unsettled weather, 

 often prevent hay-making from being the short and 

 simple process here described ; but when all things are 

 favourable, the fields are cleared in a very little time, 

 and the swelling hay-stacks, rising in different directions, 

 show how earnestly and rapidly the work has been 

 carried OIL The common number of work-people is five 



