1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 



91 



weather there is not so hot as here. The last 

 summer was an extraordinary one. 



In England they put under the hay stack a 

 quantity of briars or hedge bushing, covering 

 ail the ground on which the stack is build, so 

 that not a particle of hay is lost. When mak- 

 ing the stack, a four-bushel wheat-sack filled 

 with hay and with a rope attached to it, is 

 placed in the centre at the bottom, and as the 

 rick progresses the bag is pulled up little by 

 little, forming a kind of chimney in the mid- 

 dle, which admits a current of air to pass up 

 through the stack und( r the briars. Such 

 ricks or stacks never fire of themselves, even 

 if the hay is a little damp when stacked. 

 After a few days the rick is thatched with 

 about six inches of long straw thrashed with a 

 flail. To put this on neatly requires much 

 skill, and a good thatcher always can command 

 good wages. 



The Country Oentlemaii's correspondent 

 really must have forgotten himself when he 

 talks cf two men and a boy getting home and 

 stacking the "Severn bottom" hay from 3U0 

 acres. The statement is preposterous. One 

 man on the wagon and one man to pitch up ! 

 Who, then, drives, and who uses the ellrake : 

 and where is the stacker .-' It is true that all 

 farmers' teams are driven by loord of mouth, 

 but it requires the wagoner to drive, whose 

 sole busines ; it is to attend to the team, which 

 generally go one before the other with chain 

 traces. Rtins are not used. A farmer's nar- 

 row wheel wagon with whipples will carry from 

 three to four tons of old hay. How long a 

 time would it take two men and a boy to haul 

 home the hay from 300 acres ? And what far- 

 mer with a grain of common sense would ri-k 

 £0 much hay to the casual chances of the Eng- 

 lish climate, where lots of men at half a crown 

 or OS a day, — about 75 cents, — can be got 

 easily ? 



Harvesting Grain. 



In England, until within a few years past, 

 wheat was always cut with a sickle or the 

 Welsh broad-hook. Barley and oats are gen- 

 erally cut with a scythe — like grass, — and 

 turned over with a rake and not bound as 

 wheat is. Both are stacked as hay, but it is 

 done on "stools." These stools were for- 

 merly made of stone, in the form of a sugar- 

 loaf, but now they are made of iron. They 

 are portable, and in shape resemble a candle- 

 stick turned bottom upwards, having a round 

 smooth iron plate on the top. Wheat stacks 

 are generally made round. There is one stool 

 or pillar in the middle and several on the out- 

 side, with iron bars from each outside pillar to 

 the centre one, on which the grain is stacked. 

 The pillars are about two feet and six inches 

 high, so that no rat or mouse can get up into the 

 rick._ The stack is narrow at the bottom and 

 continues to widen as it gets up to the eaves. 

 The roof is steep and so well thatched that 

 some of the ^'holders-back''^ can keep their 



grain dry and in good order for several years, 

 waiting for higher prices. 



After the wheat stack is settled it is thatched 

 and trimmed smooth all round with a large 

 pair of shears, and is so smooth and solid that 

 a mouse or rat cannot bore its way in without 

 cutting it, and a bird can hang on the outside 

 little better than on an upright wall. 



Barley and oats are stacked on stools, but 

 not being bound are not trimmed so nicely as 

 wheat. The advantages of stools are, that 

 cats and boys can have free access under me 

 stack, and they prevent rats and mice from 

 ascending. 



Whole fields of sweet turnips are thatched 

 in England. The roots are topped, tailed, 

 and stacked in heaps, like the iron cannon 

 balls at the Tower of London and other arse- 

 nals, and these are thatched v/ith hand-thrash- 

 ed wheat straw. Thousand of acres of swedes, 

 turnips, mangolds, and grey peas and beans, 

 are grown most extensively, and are employed 

 in stall feeding. Roots are mingled with 

 chopped hay, oil-cake, beans, and grains from 

 the brewery, — the last not largely used. A 

 great deal of farinaceous food is now used 

 there, but it does not make any better beef 

 than the old fashioned food. 



I beg to enclose you an ear of winter wheat 

 grown on the banks of the river Severn, re- 

 ceived in a letter from the Old Country, which 

 you ''an compard'with that grown in your own 

 section. Pardon me for taking up so much of 

 your time and room. Jon>r Wuatmoee. 

 Biidrjenorth Farm, 



Dunleith, III., Dec. 4, 1868. 



Remaeks. — We remember of hearing, when 

 a boy, some old farmers talking about the 

 growth of wheat in England, and the remark 

 of one man that the heads were often so close 

 together in the field that mice would run along 

 on them like squiirels on the branches of trees. 

 But we believe we have never before seen a 

 bona fide head of English wheat. It is beard- 

 less, four inches and a quarter in length, and 

 on comparing it with the illustrations given in 

 Mr. Todd's American Wheat Cnlturlst find it 

 resembles the cut of the Deal Wheat, but is a 

 trifle longer, being of the exact length of the 

 drawing of Hallet's Pedigree, The straw is 

 very clean and bright, the ear well filled and 

 altogether It is a very handsome specimen of 

 wheat ; for which, as well as for his communi- 

 cation, Mr, Whatmore will accept our thanks. 



—Worsted, it is said, was first spun at a village 

 of that name near Norwich, England ; cambrics 

 came from Cambray ; damasks from Damascus ; 

 dimity from Damietta; cordovan from Cordova; 

 Calico from Calicut ; and muslin from Mosul. 



