218 
Harvesting Cum. 
from 100 to 150 sheaves, and cost about 2c?. per hundred sheaves, 
or iVom Is. to 2s. per acre for buikline^. When the crop is stacked, 
before it has stood in the sheaf h)ng- enough to harden the grain, 
a triangle is always formed of three poles about 12 feet h)ng, 
fastened together at the top. This is raised on the stands with 
the bottom ends about three feet apart ; or, if stands or staddles 
are not in use, then a stone or brushwood bottom is formed, with 
an opening leading to the triangle so as to admit free circuhiticm 
of air ; on this bottom the crop is built around the triangle in 
stacks of from three to five yards in diameter, according to the 
condition of the corn, and thus the grain is preserved from 
heating and the straw from damage. In the western and midland 
counties of Ireland a similar system prevails, with this differenc e, 
— that there the crops are all reaped and tied into very small 
sheaves, and that in building the field-stack, the builder kneels 
on the stack, which is objectionable, because the sheaves get packed 
too close, and the wind and air cannot permeate the stack freely. 
About thirty years ago, John Love, Esq., of Oakfield, in 
the county Kildarc, invented a plan of making round shocks, 
with twelve sheaves and four small head sheaves, which, while 
they resisted the rain, permitted the wind to act on the whole 
mass ; this costs about three halfpence per hundred sheaves. The 
damage done by these shocks standing too long in one place upon 
grass-layers in wet seasons, induced the author to invent a simple 
contrivance, at the cost of I2s. 6c?., which enabled two men to move 
these shocks bodily, at 6cZ. per hundred shocks of 16 sheaves each. 
This contrivance consisted of two bars of ash, three inches in depth 
by 1^ inches thick, and seven and a half feet long, rounded 
at the ends for the hand to hold by ; two three-quarter-inch round 
rods of iron, four and a half feet long, are fastened into the flat 
side of one of these ash bars, at about a foot from each end ; cor- 
responding holes being made in the other bar to receive the two 
rods so that the bars can be drawn close together or slid apart 
at the will of the carriers. From the inside of the said ash bars 
project four iron teeth, three inches long, set fifteen inches apart. 
The carriers set these bars wide enough apart for them to pass 
over the shock, and lower them to within two-thirds of the 
bottom ; they then press the' bars together, and the teeth enter 
into the shock, which is thus tightly grasped and lifted bodily on 
to fresh ground. With this simple contrivance two active men 
can, with a good crop, move shocks at 6fZ. per hundred. hen 
the shocks are few and far between it will cost more. 
As we travel from the North of England southwards, or in Scot- 
land from the west, eastwards, we find that these extra precautions 
die away, until even the practice of putting head-sheaves on the 
shocks gradually disappears, and the grain and straw are alike 
left to the mercy of the climate, which of course seldom does 
