228 W II EAT. 27. 



ly and with great conveniency to the workmen. 

 Sometimes each man binds his own eorn ; but 

 more frequently, two-and-tvvo lay together; 

 the firft making the band, the latter binding 

 the iheaf. If they work fingly, they drive the 

 corn before them with their feet, until having 

 colledled a fheaf, they flop and bind it up. 

 This method is more expeditious than that 

 of delivering the handfuls in detached reaps 

 or fhoves, which, in this narrow work, would 

 be tedious to gather up V but, in appearance 

 at leaft, it is wafleful, and at the fame time 

 conveys, to a ftranger, an idea of llovenli- 

 nefs. The bands are, in general, knotted ; 

 the fheaves made of indeterminate Hzes ; tied 

 loofcly, with the band about the middle; fet 

 tip in fliocks, as clofe as they can fland^ and 

 with generally a fheaf placed at each end, as 

 if ftudioufly intending to exclude the air en- 

 tirely from getting into the fhock. No 

 caps or head-fheavcs are ever made ufe 

 of. If the crop be tall, the flubble is lefc 

 eighteen inches or two feet high. 



Unworkmanlike as all this would feem to a mzn 

 of Kent, the Norfolk reapers have one quali- 

 iicatioh which, in fome meafure, atones for 



theil' 



