Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/389

Rh GRAIN CROPS.] AGRICULTURE 363 milky fluid on being pressed under the thumb-nail, and when the ears and a few inches of the stem immediately under them have become yellow, the sooner they are reaped the better. Barley requires to be somewhat more matured. Unless the pink stripes on the husk have disappeared, and the grain has acquired a firm substance, it will shrink in drying, and be deficient both in weight and colour. When allowed to stand till it gets curved in the neck, the straw of barley becomes so brittle that many ears break short off in the reaping, and it then suffers even more than other grain crops under a shaking wind. It is of great consequence to see that corn is dry when it is tied up in sheaves, that these are not too tightly bound, and that every sheaf is kept constantly on foot. From the increased demand for harvest labourers, and the rapidity with which operations must be carried forward, stocking is not now performed with the same accuracy that it was wont to be. There is therefore the greater need for employing a person to review the stooks daily, and keep every sheaf erect. It was formerly the practice in Scotland to set up oats and barley in full stooks of twelve sheaves each, viz., five pairs and two hood-sheaves. These hood-sheaves are an excellent defence when wet weather sets in, but they retard the drying of the corn in fine weather, and there are now few binders who can set them up so as to stand securely. It is better, therefore, to aim at rapid drying, and for this purpose to have the sheaves small individually, and to set but four or six of them together. Large sheaves the worse to dry than small ones, not only from their greater bulk, but from their being almost inevitably tighter bound. The utmost vigilance is required on the part of farmers to avoid this fault. Beans and pease are reaped by the sickle. The former are usually not bound into sheaves at once, but left prostrate in handfuls for a few days until they have withered a little. But it is on the whole safer to stook them as they are reaped. They are then sheaved and bound with ties of twisted straw, which must be provided beforehand. In stacking beans, the tops of the sheaves are kept outwards, as by this means fewer pods are exposed to the weather, or to the depredations of fowls, etc., than when the butts are to the outside. Pease are rolled into wisps as they are reaped, and afterwards turned daily until they are fit to carry. When stacked, they must instantly be thatched, as they take in wet like a sponge. It requires no little discrimination to know when sheaves are dry enough to keep in a stack. The farmer finds it for his profit to consult his most intelligent and experienced labourers on this point. On thrusting the hand into a sheaf sufficiently dried, there is a lightness and kindliness to the touch not easily mistaken when once understood. Whenever this is ascertained, the crop is carried with the utmost possible dispatch. This is best accomplished by using one-horse carts, and by building the sheaves into round stacks of ten or twelve ]oads each. Very large stacks are for ostentation, not for profit. The labour of pitching up the sheaves to them is needlessly great ; corn is much sooner in a state to keep in small stacks than in large ones, and sooner gets into condition for market ; the crop is more accessible for thrashing in ten load quantities than in huge ricks ; and the crop of different fields and kinds of grain more easily kept separate. While naming ten or twelve loads as a convenient quantity to put together in each stack, let it be observed that this assumes the sheaves to be in a thoroughly dry condition ; for in wet seasons it frequently happens that the sheaves have a sufficient degree of dryness to keep safely in stacks of five or six loads each, although they will certainly heat if double these quantities are put together. Judicious farmers therefore accommodate the size of their stacks to the condition of the sheaves, and are more concerned to get their crops secured rapidly and safely than to have their stacks of uniform size. For the same reasons, it is often expedient to stack portions of the crop either in the field where it grew or at some convenient site nearer than the homestead, but on the way towards it, and where two carts will suffice to keep each stacker in work. An incidental benefit from having the stacks in detached groups is, that it lessens the risk from fire. It is always desirable to have the stacks built upon frames or stools elevated 18 or 20 inches from the ground. Besides the security from vermin thus attained, there is a free admission of air to every part, particularly when aided by a triangle of rough timber in the centre, which speedily insures thorough dryness in the whole stack. When stacks are built upon the ground Avith a mere bedding of straw under them, the grain from the basement tiers of sheaves is often lighter by several pounds per bushel than that from the rest of it. A farmer who has his rick-yard fully furnished with these frames can often carry his crop without risk when, if built on the ground, it would inevitably heat and have the grain in condition for market earlier by months than in the latter case. As the stacks are built, Young s Stack-Stool. they are thatched without delay. For this purpose, careful farmers provide beforehand ample stores of thatch and straw ropes. The thatch is not elaborately drawn, but merely straightened a little as it falls from the thrashing- mill, tied into large bundles, and built up into stacks, where it gets compressed, and so lies more evenly than ii used direct from the mill. A good coating of such thatch secured by straw ropes, interlacing each other in chequers, forms a secure and cheap covering, easily put on by ordinary farm labourers, and possesses, with all its rough ness, an air of unpretending rustic neatness which har monises well with surrounding objects, and which we greatly prefer to the elaborate ricks of the southern counties with their shaved sides, combed thatch, and weather-cock a-peak. Apart from its cost, the shaving of stacks is objectionable, as they then suffer more from a beating rain or snow-drift than when the natural roughness is left upon them, on the same principle that a coarse, shaggy topcoat shoots off wet better than a smooth broadcloth. A stout two-ply cord made of cocoa-nut fibre, or coir, is coming into use as a substitute for straw ropes in the thatching of stacks. With proper machinery propelled by steam or water, the thrashing and dressing of grain is a simple and inexpensive process. As grain is now universally sold with a reference to its weight per bushel, its relative value depends much upon its dryness and thorough freedom from chaff, dust, light grain, and seeds of weeds. Farmers who are syste matically careful in the cultivation, harvesting, thrashing, and dressing of their crops, can always command the best prices of the day. In preparing a parcel of grain for market, it is a good plan to measure a few sacks very carefully, ascertain the average weight of these, and then fill every remaining sack to that weight exactly.