HARA^EST. 



277 



In fields, too, -where formerly the harvesting was 

 all done by hand with the old-time notched and serrated 

 sickles, or reaping hooks, requiring a dozen men or 

 over for a single field and necessitating endless hours, 

 one can hear to-day the click-click-click of the modern 

 knives in their cutter-bar as the horses draw the reaper, 

 and can see the arms of a self- 

 binder turning over and over 

 and waving above the sea of 

 wheat, gathering in the golden 

 spears. Out on the stubble one 

 by one fall the bundles, sheaves 

 already tied up with good strong 

 twine, a much more easy way of 

 doing it than the old method of 

 the cradle, a rake, a gavel, and 

 a wisp of straw. 



And then comes the shock- 

 ing of the grain, either in long or 

 round shocks as you please, the 

 bundles being placed regularly 

 together, a dozen to the shock, 



with a couple of straddling riders, or "hudders," on the 

 top to shed the rain. After drying for a few days in the 

 shock, the grain is next either hauled to the barn and 

 mowed away, or else is stacked near the house, where 

 it goes through a period of "sweating," or thorough 

 evaporation of the moisture it contains, before thresh- 

 ing. Sometimes, however, if it is cut when quite 

 ripe, the grain is hauled direct to the threshing machine 

 in the field, where, amid a great, thundering, rough 

 rhythm and a shower of dust, the kernels, or berries. 



MODERN HARVESTING. 



