ifi4 



for the occasion, to the foot of the elevator and the 

 mighty stack. Its &quot; sweets compacted lie &quot; in such bulk 

 that they fill the countryside with their savour, and a new 

 building of cathedral proportions rises on the edge of 

 the hill. The scale and speed of haymaking have both 

 increased, even on farms where there is no example of 

 that curious and ingenious new machine which tosses 

 the ridges of hay into the passing cart by automatic 

 action. The elevator lifts the hay to a height unreach- 

 able by the greatest hay-fork expert from the top of his 

 cart. You would think the risk of fire from spontaneous 

 combustion was greater than ever, so green is the grass 

 and so mighty the weight. But stack-building is not one 

 of the forgotten arts. Where juicy seed hay is being 

 stacked strata of drier meadow hay are sometimes inter 

 spersed. Salt is scattered in layers to take up superfluous 

 water, and add savour, and the builder has more subtle 

 secrets of arrangement than an idle watcher would 

 readily believe. 



A haystack is a proper object of admiration ; and one 

 differs from another more than many houses. You may 

 know by the scent whether the hay is good, for grasses, 

 like other flowers, differ much in smell. The sweet vernal 

 grass is well named ; and the sour grasses carry the aroma 

 of a sour soil. A stack of trifolium and rye smells alto 

 gether different from a stack of meadow hay with its 

 mixture of flowers and weeds, of undergrowth and bents. 

 Yet the great weight of a stack, sinking lower and lower 

 into an even solider mass, reduces some of the worst 

 weeds to a certain common sweetness ; and you may 

 see dainty animals picking out the dried nettles for 

 preference if the hay be old and perfectly cured. The 

 new stack is less fast of its scent, to use Bacon s phrase, 

 than the old, but it is a question which is the finer attar. 



