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JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  September  4,  1902. 
A  Wet  Harvest. 
Many  years  ago — we  dare  not  reckon  how  many,  but  it 
was  in  our  early  childhood— the  clergyman  of  our  parish 
introduced  a  startling  innovation.  We  had  just  begun  to 
hear  of  harvest  festivals  and  thanksgiving  services  on  the 
safe  ingathering  of  the  crops,  but  he  went  beyond  this,  and 
asked  his  people  to  join  in  a  supplicatory  service  at  early 
dawn  on  that  Monday  morning  when  the  general  harvest 
was  to  begin.  We  remember  going  down  to  the  church 
before  the  sun  was  fairly  up  to  ask  for  the  blessing  of  fine 
weather,  and  as  children  we  felt  so  grieved  and  disappointed 
because,  ere  the  breakfast  hour  came,  the  rain  poured  down 
in  torrents.  We  do  not  quite  recall  how  soon  the  weather- 
cleared,  but  that  early  morning  service  made  more  impres¬ 
sion  on  our  mind  than  many  an  ornate  harvest  festival  since. 
A  wet  harvest,  what  does  it  quite  mean  ?  It  affects  so  many 
of  us,  and  all  adversely.  No,  perhaps  not  all ;  a  wet  time 
is  a  dragging  time,  and  men  must  be  kept  to  finish  the 
work  somehow.  If  the  harvest  is  early  and  wet,  and  the 
wet  is  accompanied  by  warmth,  things  get  on  with  a  “  bonny 
mess,”  as  the  men  would  say.  With  upstanding  light  crops 
the  difficulties  are  not  so  great,  but  should  the  crops  be 
storm  broken,  i.e.,  that  is  beaten  down,  twisted,  distorted, 
the  work  is  hard  indeed.  Some  fields  look  as  though  giants 
had  made  them  their  playground,  and  where  to  begin  to 
reap  is  a  puzzle.  The  ground  is  damp  and  soft,  the  machine 
drives  heavily,  an  immense  demand  is  made  on  the  strength 
of  the  horses,  a  still  greater  demand  on  the  machine,  and 
the  greatest  of  all  on  the  temper  of  the  foreman. 
Instead  of  easy,  straightforward  cutting,  the  machine  is 
constantly  getting  clogged  up.  Very  bad  bits  have  to  be 
mown  by  hand,  and  in  no  part  of  the  field  is  a  neat,  tidy 
job  made.  Crops  like  this  will  not  allow  of  the  proper 
working  of  the  self-binder,  and  the  children  will  have  to  be 
called  into  requisition  as  band-makers  once  again  ;  let  us 
hope  some  will  be  found  for  the  job.  We  have  always  been 
in  favour  of  tying  up  com  as  it  was  cut,  and  stacking  at 
once,  but  there  are  crops  which  this  year  will  have  to  be 
treated  differently.  We  saw  a  field  of  Barley  the  other  day 
full  of  good  Clover,  so  tall  and  big ;  quite  overmastering  the 
grain  crop.  What  can  be  done  in  a  case  like  this  1  The 
Barley  straw  not  over-fit,  the  Clover  strong,  long,  and 
sappy,  and  it  seems  useless  to  tie  it  up  as  it  is  cut.  Days 
are  taking  off,  night  dews  are  heavy,  the  sun  of  late  has 
shone  with  no  power,  and  the  farmer  may  scratch  his  head 
in  dire  perplexity.  There  is  not  only  the  worry  with  the  super¬ 
abundant  Clover,  but  these  constant  rains  discolour  the 
Barley,  and  at  discoloured  Barley  no  self-respecting  maltster 
will  look.  Where  the  crops  are  laid  the  ripening  is  so  un¬ 
even,  so  irregular,  as  to  suggest  when  the  grain  is  seen  in 
bulk  two  or  more  varieties.  Laid  crops  invite  the  wood 
pigeon,  and  much  damage  is  done  by  these  voracious  birds  ; 
they  instinctively  seem  to  know  where  to  find  the  soft  milky 
grain  which  their  soul  loveth.  If  the  field  be  near  the 
village,  sparrows,  too,  will  be  much  in  evidence. 
A  wet  harvest  means  a  slow  one,  and  so  the  end  of  the 
months  comes  and  the  work  is  not  done,  and  the  higher  rate 
of  wages  must  still  be  paid,  or,  if  not  quite  that,  concessions 
have  to  be  made.  Work  has  to  be  found  during  the  web 
days,  and  what  to  give  them  to  do  sometimes  fairly  beats 
master  and  foreman.  In  old  days  much  t;me  was  put  in  in 
the  barn,  twisting  straw  rope  for  thatching.  That  now  is 
obsolete,  string  of  all  sorts  being  good  and  cheap.  The 
wet  that  hinders  harvest  work  is  very  productive  of  weeds 
among  Turnips  and  Mangolds. 
All  manure  is  led,  and  stackyards  cannot  be  cleaned  up 
for  ever,  and  by  this  time  all  weak  places  in  the  fences  will 
be  made  up.  There  is  another  phase  of  the  question  to 
consider.  Corn  not  fully  dry  cannot  be  threshed,  and  we 
do  not  know  from  our  own  observation  where  the  straw 
for  thatching  is  to  come  from,  and  straw  that  has  been 
much  weathered  loses  some  of  its  best  qualities.  And  there 
is  another  thing  very  much  lacking  among  farmers  till  they 
can  get  a  bit  of’  Wheat  on  the  market,  and  that  is  money  ; 
how  scarce  it  is  we  dare  not  surmise.  Harvest  wages  to 
be  met  and  current  expenses,  and  nothing  much  to  turn 
into  money.  Then  there  is  the  anxiety  as  to  future  work. 
Those  who  are  looking  forward  to  the  Potato  harvest  wonder 
when  those  tubers  will  be  safely  housed.  There  are  stubbles 
to  plough,  but  they  cannot  be  ploughed  till  cleared,  and 
no  Wheat  can  be  sown  till  the  Potatoes  are  lifted.  We  can 
only  hope  and  pray  for  a  fine  and  |long  back-end. 
There  is  another  little  matter  which  perhaps  affects  the 
ladies  of  the  household  most — w£  refer  to  the  absence  of 
“  hen  corn.”  Ours  has  been  done  a  long  time,  and  still 
the  fowls  must  be  fed,  and  it  is  just  at  this  season  that 
farmers’  fowls,  as  a  rule,  suffer.  There  is  a  disinclination 
to  buy,  and  the  fowls  go  often  with  half  rations,  or  indeed 
little  more  than  they  can  pick  up,  and  they  face,  or  perhaps 
go  through,  the  moulting  season  ill-prepared  for  the  extra 
strain  on  the  system.  We  are  buying  meal,  and  we  find  it 
pays  ;  there  are  plenty  of  eggs,  and  the  fowls  look  the  picture 
of  health.  The  new  corn  must  come  soon,  we  have  always 
been  promised  a  harvest,  and  the  promise  has  not  failed  yet. 
Fortunately,  a  wet  harvest  now  is  not  so  disastrous  to 
bread  consumers  as  formerly.  Who  among  us  can  remember 
the  soft,  sticky  bread  that  was  made  from  sprouted  corn? 
Bread  that  was  warranted  to  give  indigestion  to  the  strongest, 
and  which  was  absolutely  unfit  for  the  invalid  or  child.  We 
have  changed  all  that,  and  although  we  grumble  at  the 
wretched  price  now  obtainable  for  our  corn,  we  cannot  but 
be  thankful  that  we  can  produce  good,  sound,  dry  corn  to 
grind  for  our  daily  bread.  The  present  generation  cannot 
at  all  enter  into  the  difficulties  that  beset  their  elders  in 
this  matter ;  they  have  been  so  used  to  the  best  flour  and 
no  offals  that  they  would  take  ill  to  the  soft  bread  resultant 
on  a  wet  harvest.  There  is  always  some  contributing  country 
where  the  sun  has  prevailed,  and  the  Wheat  is  firm  and 
dry.  There  will  be  much  shifting  of  stacks,  taking  the  hedge- 
side  ones  out  into  the  middle  of  the  close,  turning  bottoms 
up  to  the  sun,  and  let  us  hope  to  the  wind,  that  admirable 
medium  for  drying.  There  will  not  be  much  corn  left  this 
year  to  get  over-ripe,  the  anxiety  will  be  to  cut  as  early  as 
possible  ;  there  is  no  time  to  be  lost.  The  harvest  moon 
will  come  and  go  without  having  served  its  end,  and  the 
sun  will  go  down  all  too  soon.  It  makes  such  a  difference 
an  hour  or  more  less  of  daylight  at  either  end  of  the  day. 
The  heavy  dews,  that  are  as  searching  as  rain,  fall  early  and 
disappear  with  reluctance,  and  the  evening  shadows  fall 
while  yet  the  work  is  but  half  done.  We  were  going  to  say 
a  word  in  pity  for  the  gleaners,  but  they  appear  an  extinct 
race.  Who  could  glean  with  flour  at  Is.  3d.  per  stone  1  Here 
is  one  -word  of  warning  to  those  who  have  stooks  on  seeds. 
If  they  have  to  stand  long,  move  the  stooks. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
We  began  the  past  week  with  a  small  deluge,  but  since  then 
we  have  enjoyed  five  successive  fine  days  with  a  good  amount  of 
sunshine.  The  crops  are  ripening  rapidly,  and  the  harvest  has 
commenced  in  the  neighbourhood,  though  there  is  nothing  yet 
ready  here.  Oats  and  Barley,  especially  the  latter,  are  inclined 
to  die  away  too  quickly,  and  there  is  a  fear  that  good  malting 
qualities  may  be  scarce.  Samples  will  be  very  uneven,  for  the 
laid  portions  of  the  crops  are  quite  dead,  and  some  of  the  standing 
comparative'”  green.  The  appearance  of  more  settled  -weather 
is  giving  farmers  more  confidence  in  their  self-binders,  and  they 
will  be  generally  used  after  all.  Report  says  they  are  doing  good 
work  so  far.  The  land  is  a  little  soft  for  them,  but  it  will  soon  be 
hard  enough  if  the  weather  holds.  We  should  not  care  to  string- 
bind  some  Barley  we  saw  a  day  or  two  ago,  with  alsyke  level  with 
the  ears.  Alsyke  is  very  useful  for  pasture,  but  it  is  dreadful 
to  harvest  except  under  very  favourable  conditions.  We  have 
always  avoided  it  for  that  reason.  In  a  dry  summer  it  is  all 
right,  and  its  success  during  the  late  droughty  seasons  have 
stimulated  its  use  amongst  sheep  farmers.  The  best  way  to 
deal  with  a  crop  full  of  tall  alsyke  or  cowgrass  Avould  lead  to 
considerable  difference  of  opinion.  Some  would  mow  it  or  reap 
it,  and  leave  the  Barley  to  dry  in  swathe  or  sheaf,  not  tying  it 
up  until  it  is  ready  to  stack.  This  would  do  if  the  weather  were 
settled  and  there  were  no  very  heavy  dews.  We  should  prefer  to 
mow  or  reap  with  a  self-raker,  and  tie  the  Barley  up  by  hand 
immediately.  If  it  is  well  and  carefully  stooked  it  will  dry  as 
quickly  in  stook  as  it  will  on  the  ground,  and  the  grain  will  not 
be  so  liable  to  staining.  Heavv  dews  spoil  the  colour  very  much 
1  when  the  Barley  is  exposed  to  them. 
