THE STACKYARD POPULATION 397 



imported from overseas lies between the people and cereal 

 starvation. 



But the picture still remains of the old farmer walking 

 every Sunday morning from his homestead on the hill 

 to admire his rickyard, every rick raised on strong 

 stone pillars with flat heads to keep off rats and mice. A 

 miser telling his gold is an unlovely sight. The old farmer 

 gloating with deep satisfaction over his golden grain, inspect- 

 ing the trim pentagon ends, the straw eaves over the 

 well walled length, or the exact circle of other stacks piled 

 by a veteran artist in a dying craft this picture raises the 

 miser to a height of stalwart merit. A haystack represents 

 wealth in a form that gives wonderful satisfaction to its owner, 

 especially when the cutter begins to work and you see the 

 virtue you always believed in announced in the solid wall, 

 smelling of the meadows, with the ' bouquet ' of a vintage. 

 A trim stack, whether of hay or corn, is indeed a very 

 satisfying object. The pity is that the biggest and finest 

 groups of cornstacks disappear first for a very real reason 

 in rural economy. All the threshing nowadays is done by 

 travelling engines. The paraphernalia are very considerable. 

 The better machines sort and guide all that comes to them : the 

 good grain falls into one sack, the tails into another, dust and 

 husks of different quality into others, and the straw is thrown 

 out. A gang of men is required. The engine is heavy and 

 valuable, needing a skilled mechanic ; and the machinery, 

 though wonderfully strong, is intricate. Now that many 

 farms take trouble to grow pure varieties of oats and wheat, 

 very often selling seed, or, at any rate, growing their own, 

 the machine must be very clean. The whole work of thresh- 

 ing depends on the imported men and machinery. The 

 threshers indeed are now become quite a little craft of their 

 own. They are almost houseless during the winter months. 



