“They are very busy here,” said Uncle George, as he went into the field
with Frank, Tom, and Dolly.
And well might he say so, for the _whirr_ of the reaping-machine could
be heard far away. Round the field it went, sweeping down the golden
wheat. Following behind it were several girls, who twisted bands of
straw and laid them on the ground. Behind these came women who quickly
gathered up the cut wheat and placed it in bundles upon the bands. Then
came men who bound these bundles into sheaves and tossed them aside.
After these, again, came men who caught up the sheaves and placed them
upright in bunches of six or eight. These bunches of sheaves they called
“_stooks_.” Last of all came a huge rake drawn by horses, gathering up
all the straws that were left. Every now and then the man that guided
the rake pressed an iron bar, and, whenever he did so, all the teeth of
the rake rose up at once, and left a row of gathered straw on the field.
Then a man came and bound them into rough sheaves as before.
All was work and bustle and noise. What with the whirr of the
reaping-machine, the girls singing as they worked, the larks singing in
the sky, and the glorious autumn sun, the children thought the
harvest-field was the most cheerful place they had ever seen.
“Why do you do that?” Frank asked a man who was fixing up the stooks.
“Would it not be just as well if you left the sheaves lying on the
ground until you cart them away?”
“Ah, no, Master Frank,” said the man, who knew him well, “that would
never do. We must allow the corn time to get dry, so we place the
sheaves upright that the sun and wind may dry them; and so that any rain
that falls may run down the stalks to the ground. When the sheaves are
quite dry, we take them home to the stack-yard.”
“How long does that take?” Frank asked.
“It all depends on the weather,” the man replied. “If it keeps fine,
they will be dry within a week. In rainy weather, sometimes the sheaves
have to stand in the fields for some weeks. In the next field the crop
was cut a week ago. They are taking it home now.”
[Illustration: The Stack-yard.]
“And you build the sheaves into great stacks there?” said Tom.
“Yes, it is kept in stacks until we are ready to thresh it. You must all
come over to the farm and see it being threshed into grain and straw
some day.”
“But why do you build it into stacks?” asked Frank.
“So that we may keep it through the winter, and thresh a stack at a time
as we need it,” the man replied. “It is threshed by passing it through a
mill. At our farm the mill is turned by horses. At some farms there are
mills turned by a great water-wheel. Sometimes a steam-engine comes and
threshes the whole crop in the fields.”
“And what do you do with it when it is threshed?” Dolly asked.
“When the corn is passed through the mill, it is so shaken up that all
the grain is removed from the stalks. The grain comes out at one side of
the mill and falls into sacks. The straw is tossed out at another part.
We use the straw for bedding for horses and cows, and some kinds of
straw we use for feeding them. The grain goes to the miller, who grinds
it into flour. The flour goes to the baker, who bakes it into bread.”
“Come along, boys!” Uncle George shouted from the next field. “We are
going over to the farmyard to see the stacks made.”
In the next field the farmer’s men were loading a waggon with sheaves of
corn. The sheaves were caught up by long pitch-forks and tossed on to
the waggon. Here a man put them into a great square load. When this was
done, the men lifted Dolly up, and she rode up to the farmyard on the
top of the great load of sheaves.
In the stack-yard a large round stack was being built. A wooden frame
was in the middle, and round this a man put the sheaves in a circle as
they were thrown to him from the waggon.
“Now, boys,” said Uncle George, “Dolly wants to know why sheaves are
made with all the ears of corn at one end. Can you tell us?”
“Oh, that is easy,” said Tom. “The sheaves have to stand in the field
for a long time to dry. They could not stand up so well if they were
made any other way. Besides, the ears of corn must be up from the
ground, or they would be broken off.”
“There is another reason,” said Uncle George. “Look how the stack is
being made. The top, or grain end of the sheaf is inside. The outside of
the stack is made up of the cut ends of the straws. Thus the grain is
kept secure from bad weather and thieving birds. Besides, the stack
could not be made round in shape if they were placed in any other way.
The bottom of the sheaf is much wider than the top.”
In another part of the yard men were busy roofing the newly built stacks
with straw. The straw roof was tied down with many ropes, also made of
twisted straw, and then the stack was ready.
“What a lot of work there is in getting corn,” said Frank.
“Ah, yes,” said his uncle, “much more work than we have seen to-day.
Think of the work done in the fields in spring, getting the land ready
for seed—the work of ploughing, sowing, reaping, and threshing done by
the farmer’s men and horses—the work done by the rain and sun in growing
and ripening the wheat—the work done by the miller and baker; and all
this, Frank, that we may have a loaf of bread.”
Questions and Exercises.
1. Tell the story of a wheat plant from the time it begins to grow
from the seed until it is ready to be cut.
2. Where does the making of a loaf of bread really begin? From what
you have learnt in the lesson, trace the history of a loaf of
bread.
3. Make a list of crops grown on the farm, and tell the use of each.