REAPING. 
: 
26 
ing bands for both himself and the two women, 
and a binder or bandster following every two 
such sets of reapers and binding all the sheaves. 
The last of these is the method most common in 
the best districts of Scotland; and seems far the 
best for combining economy of strength or of 
labour with goodness of execution. Yet, says 
Martin Doyle, in decided preference of the next 
last, which is often practised in the cutting of 
wheat-crops in Ireland, “ Two smart reapers with 
a fair crop will give a woman constant occupa- 
tion in collecting and binding; and surely it is 
better at a critical season to employ the men in 
severing the corn alone, when active women can 
discharge the other part of the work equally 
well, and at a cheaper rate, too, and with the 
additional consideration that, by giving them 
such employment, the means of supporting their 
families are enlarged.” 
The art of reaping with the sickle, together 
with the risk of wounds on the part of beginners 
and the methods of dexterity on the part of the 
experienced, cannot be taught by book, yet may 
be promptly and easily taught by example, and 
need not therefore be described. But all reapers 
ought to have the habit of cutting the corn both 
evenly and low. Reapers who do not work ina 
sufficiently cowering posture, but keep their legs 
erect and bend the body only from the haunches, 
cut each sweep or breadth of the corn low in the 
front and high in the rear so as to give the sur- 
face of the stubble along a ridge the appearance 
of a series of notches; and the majority of reap- 
ers, whether they have this vice or not, and 
especially if they use the smooth and not the 
serrated sickle, are prone to cut so high from 
the ground as to leave a long stubble, and to 
cause a vast aggregate loss of straw. The de- 
| sirableness of the shortest possible stubble, and 
the greatest possible quantity of straw, particu- 
larly in the vicinity of large towns where straw 
is sold at a high price, is the great motive for 
sometimes preferring the method of reaping called 
BaGGine. 
The comparative economy of reaping with the 
scythe, the smooth sickle, and the serrated sickle, 
has been much discussed, and is not well under- 
stood; and experiments for ascertaining it have 
not always, as they ought to have been, con- 
ducted under equally favourable circumstances, 
with implements of the most approved descrip- 
tion, by scythemen and sicklemen equally dex- 
terous in their respective art, and with sufficient 
scope and variety and frequency of repetition to 
detect and rectify contingent error. But a re- 
port on the subject, in the Highland Society’s 
Transactions for July 1844, by Mr. John Taylor 
of Corsiestone, near Huntly, in Aberdeenshire, 
founded on “practical experience and minute 
observation,” and prefaced with a full regard to 
the conditions of right experimenting, is so good 
that we cannot do better than give an abstract 
of it to our readers. 
‘‘In regard to binding,” says Mr. Taylor, ‘‘ the 
average number of sheaves, of an average crop of 
oats or barley, that one man can bind and stook in 
one day of ten hours, by these three modes, differs 
thus :— 
Of sheaves reaped by the scythe, . ; . 1500 
Of sheaves reaped by the smooth sickle, . . 1200 
Of sheaves reaped by the serrated sickle, . 1200 
This difference is accounted for, first, by the mown 
sheaves being in regular rows of considerable length, 
the binder loses no time in moving from row to row, 
as in binding to shearers on two or three ridges; 
and, second, by mown stooks not requiring to be 
hooded. In practice, however, the binder binds 
less in a day to the scythe than to the sickle, be- 
cause he binds to but one scythe, and the latter to 
six shearers, who reap more in a day than one 
scythe; but the binder to the scythe, if the crop be 
good, finds plenty of employment in assisting the 
gatherer in making bands. Sheaves reaped by the 
smooth and serrated sickles in the usual way are 
equally easily bound; but by the mode of reaping 
by the former, termed cuffing, the sheaves are not 
so neat, and the binder’s work is more difficult, the 
sheaves requiring some dressing, and numerous fallen 
heads to be lifted up. Therefore, though a man 
may, and commonly does, bind as many sheaves in 
a given time, reaped by this, as by the usual mode, 
it must be by greater exertion, or else the work will 
be imperfectly done. 
‘*In regard to winning, the prevalent opinion is, 
that grain reaped by the scythe is sooner ready for 
carrying than that reaped by either description of 
sickle, and my own experience is corroborative of 
this opinion. In regard to winning, the work of the 
smooth and serrated sickles, if done in the usual 
way, is quite the same. Sheaves reaped by the 
smooth sickle by cuffing (viz., striking with the 
sickle so as to cut and gather a sheaf together with- 
out grasping every cut with the left hand) have the 
advantage of being less compressed than if reaped in 
the usual way, but want the peculiarities of form 
which contribute to the winning of mown sheaves. 
In investigating the cause or causes of the difference 
of mowing and reaping, in regard to winning, the 
following peculiarities have particularly attracted 
my notice:—l, That, in a great majority of cases, 
and especially on narrow ridges, the straws compos- 
ing a sheaf vary considerably in length. 2, That all 
the straws in sheaves, reaped by the sickle, reach to 
the bottom, or stubble end; and, therefore, includ- 
ing all the short straws within the sheaf, require the 
bands to be passed round near the bottom. 3, That 
binding in this way retards the process of winning in 
two ways—by compressing that part of the sheaf 
which most requires exposure, so as to render it al- 
most impenetrable to the influence of sun and wind; 
and, by expanding its corn end so much, that when 
stooked, the stooks were almost as broad at top as 
at bottom; and, to defend these from rain, require 
hocd-sheaves, which retard the winning of the grain. 
4, That sheaves reaped by the scythe are even, or 
nearly so, at the top or corn end, and, to include all 
the short straws, require the bands passed round a 
little below the ears of corn. 5, That binding near 
the top expands the bottom, and gives the sheaf a 
tapering form from bottom to top; for though the 
straws are more numerous at top than at bottom, 
they are much smaller, more compressed, and con- 
sequently occupy less space. 6, That, when set up, 
the ridge of the stook is very acute, leaving the least 
possible admission for rain, and therefore requires no 
hoodsheaves. And7, That, after heavy rain, stooks 
reaped by the scythe are sooner dry than those 
reaped by the sickle, because the wet naturally sinks 
toward the bottom of the sheaf, but the former, 
being open, allows it quickly to escape by evapora- 
