high. This is done three times. They then 
change their cry to 'wee yen!’—‘way yen’— 
which they sound in the same prolonged 
and slow manner as before, with singular 
harmony and effect, three tunes. The last, 
accompanied by the same movements of 
the body and arms as in crying the neck.’” 
Now, may not this word have undergone 
various changes until “neck” and “knack” 
were transformed from one to the other? 
but from which to which it would be hard 
to say. To resume: “Well, after having 
repeated the ‘neck’ three times, and ‘wee 
yen’ or ‘way yen,’ as often, they all burst 
out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, 
flinging up their hats and caps into the air, 
capering about and—perhaps—kissing the 
girls. One of the men gets ‘the neck’ and 
runs as hard as he can down to the farm¬ 
house, where the dairy-maid, or one of the 
young female domestics, stands at the door 
prepared with a pail of water. If he who 
holds ‘the neck’ can manage to get into 
the house, in any way, unseen, or openly, 
by any other way than the door, at which 
the girl stands with the pail of water, then 
he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, 
he is regularly soused with the contents of 
the bucket. It is imagined that the object 
of crying ‘the neck’ is to give the surround- 
country notice of the end of harvest, and 
that they mean by ‘we yen,’ we have ended. 
It may more probably mean ‘we end,’ 
which the uncouth and provincial pronun¬ 
ciation has corrupted into ‘we yen.’ The 
‘neck’ is generally hung up in the farm¬ 
house, where it remains sometimes three or 
four years.” 
Another custom was in vogue, which 
was to have each farmer drive furiously 
home with the last load of corn, while the 
people ran after him with bowls full of 
water in order to throw on it, and this us¬ 
age was accompanied with great shouting. 
“The Maiden Feast” was a festival pecu¬ 
liar to North Britain, and is described as 
being celebrated in this way: “Upon the 
finishing of the harvest, the last handful of 
corn reaped in the field was called the 
maiden. This was generally contrived to 
fall into the hands of one of the finest girls 
in the field, and was dressed up in ribbons 
and brought home in triumph with music 
of fiddle and bag-pipes. A good dinner 
was given to the whole band, and the evenr¬ 
ing spent in jollity and dancing while the 
fortunate lass, who took the maiden, was 
the queen of the feast; after which the 
handful of corn was dressed out generally 
in the form of a cross, and hung up with 
the date of the year in some conspicuous 
part of the house. This custom has been 
done away with for some years, and in its 
room each shearer is given sixpence and a 
loaf of bread. However, some farmers, 
when all their corn is brought in, give 
their servants a dinner and a jovial even¬ 
ing by way of harvest-home.” 
It should be borne in mind that the sea¬ 
son is more advanced in England,, and the 
harvest comes much sooner than in some 
portions of the United States. 
Birds. 
Birds are invaluable to the fruit grower. 
We always make them welcome. They 
begin their day’s work in the morning 
when daylight appears, and at all hours of 
the day they are busy catching these worms 
and insects that destroy our fruits. We 
are not only benefited by their labors, but 
also delighted with their songs as they 
cheerfully search for our enemies all the 
day long. True, they eat our cherries, but 
it was our fault that we did not plant more y 
that there should be enough for us and a 
few for the birds. Our kind treatment 
makes them gentle and tame. They make 
their nests all around us and rear their 
young, returning to us each year in in¬ 
creasing numbers. We have no tent cater¬ 
pillars, for the blackbirds have destroyed 
their nests and eaten the inmates long ag. .. 
Ten years ago, before we had the charge of 
the orchards, the tent caterpillars had com¬ 
plete possession; the blackbirds were shot 
at and driven away, for pulling up corn, at 
the time they were ntaking their nests. 
Now the corn is coal-tarred, and is not dis¬ 
turbed by birds, and they fill our orchards. 
So far this year, we have only found a 
single brood of caterpillars, or rather the 
remains, for the worms were taken before 
we found the nest. All kinds of birds are 
welcome. Even the despised English spar¬ 
row is keeping the canker worm in check, 
—Farm and Garden . 
