THE VANISHED SHEAF 231 



crime punishable with death. It might be so in England 

 for the number of gleaners. 



The change to this point was great but did not spoil 

 the glory of harvest, rather to our surprise ; and perhaps 

 we may accept the latest and perhaps greater change 

 without excess of regret. It is a great loss that this 

 English-made &quot; Harvester-thresher &quot; permits no sheaf. 

 A huddle and muddle of straw over the field is as poor 

 an alternative to the sheaf as the long straws left half 

 erect on prairie farms behind machines that do not 

 trouble to cut it at all, but are content merely to comb off 

 the ears, to skim the cream and leave the milk. The 

 loss of the cornstack, that solid and satisfying pentagon, 

 well worth the pride of many a Sunday visit, is hardly 

 less vital. The full sense of harvest prevails, nevertheless. 

 After all, the hedgerow and the little field are new. The 

 Pastons knew no such beauties, and where hedges are 

 levelled to give freer pasture to the new monster, we 

 restore the country to its earlier nature. These ample 

 fields of barley with no division but woodland were singu 

 larly inspiring, were in apostolic succession to the Old 

 Testament, to the Egyptian harvest. They are in har 

 mony with the quality of Norfolk, where wide barren 

 areas of gorse and bracken and firs lie cheek by jowl with 

 the most congenial barley land in the world. Even on 

 the biggest harvest prairie was a little, little stack, heaped 

 out of the headland grain where the scythe-mowers had 

 made beginning. Only here and there in the sandy 

 country, the chalk country, and perhaps the clay country, 

 will the field give place to the prairie : and we may as well 

 adopt the mood of Ruth, even among the litter of straw 

 and the rumble of the caterpillar tractor, &quot;Joy in 

 harvest&quot; remains. 



