Book V. MIXED OPERATIONS BY MANUAL LABOUR. 519 



the hands, and afterwards driven with the legget, or with a mallet used for this purpose. The middle 

 ligger being firmly laid, the thatcher smooths down the straw with a rake and his hands, about eight 

 or nine inches on one side, and at six inches from the first laj's another ligger, and pegs it down with a 

 similar number of double broaches, thus proceeding to smooth the straw, and to fasten on liggers at every 

 six inches, until he reach the bottom of the cap. One side finished, the other is treated in tlie same man- 

 ner ; and the first length being completed, another and another length is laid, and finished as the first, 

 until the other end of the ridge be reached. He then cuts off the tails of the straw square and neatly 

 with a pair of shears, level with the uppermost butts of the reed, above which the cap (or most properly 

 the roojiet) shows an eaves of about six inches thick; and, lastly, he sweeps the sides of the main roof 

 with a bough of holly j when the work is completed." 



3196. Trussing straw or hay is. the operation of binding it in bundles for more con- 

 venient deportation. In trussing hay from a rick, it is cut into cubic masses witli the 

 hay-knife (2484.), and tied by a hay rope passing once across each of its sides. If the 

 trusses are intended for the London market, they are weighed with a steelyard, and each 

 truss of old stacked hay must weigh 56 pounds, and of new hay, during June, July, and 

 August, 60 pounds. We have described a very convenient machine for the operation of 

 trussing. (2561.) 



3197. Straw is commonly trussed by tying it into bundles by a band of a handful of 

 straws, or a short rope across the middle of the bundle, or by a particular mode of 

 twisting and turning back the two straggling ends of a loose armful of straw, and tying 

 these ends in the middle. This mode, more easily practised than described, is termed in 

 the north bottling or windling. When wheat-straw or any other sort is to be trussed for 

 thatch, it is first drawn into regular lengths, leaving out the refuse, as already alluded to 

 under thatching. In London, the straw sold for litter is always required to be trussed 

 in this manner, and each truss is required to weigh 56 pounds. 



3198. Threshing by the Jlail is still a very general practice in most of the southern 

 counties, though all intelligent men agree that it is more expensive and less effectual 

 than threshing by a machine. Even on the smallest-sized farms, where a horse machine 

 would be too expensive, either the hand machine or portable machine (2546. ) might be 

 employed. Besides threshing cleaner, and that too in a manner independently of the care 

 of the operators, the work is performed withcfUt the aid of expensive threshing floors, 

 goes on rapidly, is a more agreeable description of labour for servants, employs women 

 and children, and, finally, exposes the corn to less risk of pilfering. 



3199. In the flail mode of threshing, the produce is constantly exposed to the depredations of the persons 

 employed in executing the business, which is a great objection, and in many cases this mode proves a source 

 of great loss to the farmer, as he cannot by any means prevent the impositions to which it renders him 

 liable. It has been observed by Middleton, in his Survey of Middlesex, that " where threshers are 

 employed by the day, they frequently do not perform half the work that ought to be done in the time, nor 

 even that in a jiorfectly clean manner;" and that if" it be executed by the quarter, or by the truss, the 

 freest corn is threshed out, and the rest left in the ear." The same thing takes place in a greater or less 

 degree in every other mode that can be devisetl for having the work performed by the hand ; and it is 

 consequently only by the general introduction and use of the threshing machine that the property and 

 interest of the farmer can be fully secured, and work be executed with a proper degree of economy. 



3200. In respect to the mode of threshing corn by the flail, it i^ the practice in some districts for only one 

 person to be employed upon a floor, yet as two can thresh together with equal if not greater expedition and 

 dispatch, it must be a disadvantageous mode; but where more than two labourers thresh together, which 

 is sometimes.the case, there must be frequent interruptions, and a consequent loss of time. The flail 

 or tool by which this sort of business is performed should be well adapted to the size and strength of 

 the person who makes use of it, as, when disproportionately heavy in that part which acts upon the grain, 

 it much sooner fatigues the labourer, without any advantage being gained in the beating out of the 

 grain. The best method of attaching the different parts of the implement together is probably by 

 means of caps and thongs of good tough leather. Iron is, however, sometimes employed. In threshing 

 most sorts of corn, but particularly wheat, the operators should wear thin light shoes, in order to avoid 

 bruising the grains as much as possible. In the execution of the work, when the corn is bound into 

 sheaves, it is usual for the threshers to begin at the ear-ends, and proceed regularly to the others, then 

 turning the sheaves in a quick manner by means of the flail, to proceed in the same way with the other 

 side, thus finishing the work. 



3201. The quantify of corn that a labourer will thresh with the flail in any given period of time, must 

 depend on the nature of the grain, the freeness with which it threshes, and the exertions of the labourer; 

 in general it may be of wheat, from one to one and a half quarter; of barley, from one and a half to two 

 quarters ; and of oats mostly about two in the day. The exertions of labourers in this sort of work in 

 the northern districts of the kingdom are, however, much greater than in those of the south ; of course a 

 much larger proportion of labour must be performed. In some places it is the practice to thresh by the 

 measure of grain, as the bushel, quarter, &c. ; while in others it is done by the threave of twenty-four 

 sheaves, and in some by the day. In whatever way the agricultor has this sort of business performed, 

 there is always much necessity for his constant inspection, in order to prevent the frauds and impositions 

 that are too frequently practised upon him by the persons engaged in the execution of it. 



3202. The practice of whipping out grain is resorted to in some districts with wheat, 

 when the straw is much wanted for thatch. The operator takes a handful, and strikes 

 the ears repeatedly against a stone, the edge of a board, or the face of a strong wattled 

 hurdle, till the corn is separated. 



3203. Burning out, a mode formerly practised in the Highlands of Scotland, and not 

 yet obsolete, may be noticed here. It is to burn the straw with the corn in it, instead 

 of subjecting it to the flail. This has been described in several of the County Reports, 

 particularly in Walker's Hebrides and MacdonaZd's Report of the Western Islands. The 

 corn is thus not only separated from the straw but sufficiently dried or parched to 

 grind without being sent to the kiln. It is a bad practice, as the straw is lost, and 

 consequently the soil, for want of manure, must soon become barren. 



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