262 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



the whole crop had gone down, lay in neat bundles 

 dotted in lines or curves throughout the field. I was 

 hardly conscious of human action whilst this change 

 went forward. 



Perhaps the whole crop was cut and bound with 

 the aid of a single man. All he did was to sit on the 

 machine and jog the cord, reminding the horses when 

 they must turn, and apply the cutter and binder to 

 another row. This aid cannot be called perfunctory 

 though, even if he slept, it would seem as though the 

 patient, trained beasts might do their work by rote 

 but it is indirect, subsidiary compared with what it 

 was in old harvest days of scythe or sickle and of hand 

 binding with a wisp of straw. Later on, the human 

 element does come in a little more. We see in the 

 evening of the first day's cutting or next morning as 

 many as four men gathering and piling in tens or 

 twelves the bound bundles of corn. 



The trifling band of workers still further grew when 

 the wain entered the field, and the rattle of the ele- 

 vator sounded at the corner, where the stack was to 

 be built ; for we have yet to find a machine to gather 

 the piled sheaves, another to pack them on the rick as 

 well as suck them off' the wain : the first may seem 

 impossible, the second improbable, but think of a 

 machine that cuts, binds, and arranges in neat rows 

 to our fathers, the man who started such an idea 

 would have been a wild visionary. The story of har- 

 vest machinery is not fully told yet. 



