COUNTRY LIFE
Harvest Scenes
The English .countryside was seldom more beautiful. In spite of the spread of the machine . (including the monster that cuts, threshes, bags and ploughs all at one time), the common harvest is the old harvest,-and we see in due succession Waving ears, ranged stooks, ruddy stubbles and at last a deep dark tilth. In many districts the crops are really Magnificent ; and most have been put into stack in the Minimum of time. The grain has been baked so dry and hard that the " berries " are as " strong " as " Manitoba hard," and it was hardly necessary to leave them in the stook at: all for drying purposes. There is a certain shortage of available threshing machines ; and when it is necessary to have the grain, long in stack the loss from rats and mice is often heavier than even the farmer himself realizes. Some attempts are being made to treat the stacks (as well as the holes) with poison gas.
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