39° KALM'S ENGLAND. 



a knife specially made for the purpose, flat or smooth, 

 partly that the cattle may not so easily be able to steal 

 from it, partly that the rain and wet may not fasten 

 thereon, partly that it might look better. 



I will for clearness call the upper and out-sloping 

 sides A E and A B C D, Fig. 2, and K L, K M, Fig. 1 

 'thatch,' tak, and the lower and in- sloping sides LN, 

 M O Fig. 1 [T. II. p. 34], and E F, C D G H, Fig. 2, 

 sides or walls. The stacks are always made so that they 

 are widest at the thatch-band, tackbandet, and grow 

 narrower afterwards down their sides all the way to the 

 bottom. This also prevents the water which comes 

 dripping from their thatch from rotting the walls or sides. 

 Now follows how the thatching is effected. They are 

 commonly thatched with straw, which is here taken from 

 the wheat, as they reckon that the best. Sometimes they 

 are thatched with hay, but not so often. Then they raise 

 a ladder against the haystack, so that it comes to lie 

 along the direction of the thatch. Afterwards they take 

 the ' baster,'* a small sheaf of straw, halm-karfva, which 

 is bound with straw at both ends. This is laid down at 

 the thatch band LM, CD, in this way that it comes to 

 lie horizontally. Afterwards they stick a ' rick-peg ' (fircm. 



* Baster. A long, narrow bundle of straw about as large as one can 

 span with both hands, still used as described by Kalm, Sept. 1886, also for 

 laying along the ridge of the stack to make the crest of the straw stand erect. 

 At Gaddesden Row, Herts, it is pron. like ' Master.' Also in the form 

 ■ Basse (disyll.) a collar for cart-horses made of rushes, straw, sedge, &c.' 

 Bailey Die. 1736. Normandy Patois, Batiere, a packsaddle, Fr. Bat, Ital. 

 Basto ; O.N. (Icel) Bastari, a bast binder, Fr. Batier, Ital. Bastiere, bastaio, a 

 pack-saddle maker. — O.N., Dan., Swed., Ger., Dut., Eng. Bast ' lime tree 

 bark made into ropes and mats.' Bailey, Eng. Die. 1736. 'Bass, Bast, 

 matting, dried rushes or sedges.' Brockett Northern Gloss. 3rd ed., 1846. 

 Dan. 'Bast. Ger. Bast, damit man bindet.' G. H. Miiller, Dan-Deutsch 

 Wort. 1800. — O.N. (Icel.), Swed., Basta to bind into a bundle, Dan. Baste og 

 binde, to bind up; &c. [J.L.] 



