THE WHEAT CrLT[IRTST. 



355 



laid. And if the sheaves are not of a uniform length, 

 even an experienced stacker will be liable to build an 

 ill-shapen stack, that will not turn the rain so well, as 

 if it had been made of sheaves of a uniform size. It is 

 of eminent importance that the man who makes the 

 gavels should understand all the advantages and disad- 

 vantages of having sheaves too long, or too large, or too 

 small, and poorly bound. 



My o^vn rule always has been, to make the gavels as 

 large as they can be bound conveniently. This thought 

 is always kept in mind when the reaper cuts the grain, 

 as well as when the gavels are raked by hand. If gavels 

 be so large that a binder cannot reach around one with- 

 out making extra exertions, he will lose time and fall 

 behind. On the contrary, if the gavels be made too 

 small, too much time will be consumed in making bands 

 and binding the sheaves. Many laborers do not seem 

 to consider that it makes any difference whether they 

 make twenty sheaves in going across the field, or 

 whether the same amount of straw is bound into forty 

 bundles, requiring nearly double the time. 



If the straw be so short that a double band will not 

 extend around a gavel, of course, the length of the straw 

 must be the guide in determining the size of the gavels. 

 I always aimed to make the sheaves as large as they 

 could conveniently be bound, for the purpose of econ- 

 omizing labor. Eaking and binding only a few sheaves 

 is really a small matter. But, when a quantity of grain 

 is bound into 4,000 sheaves, when it might have been 

 put into 3,000, without any inconvenience at all, we per- 

 ceive a loss of time and expense required to bind 1,000 

 sheaves. Besides this, there is a loss of time in loading 

 and stacking. If a certain amount of grain sufficient 



