SHOCKS on STOOKS?
The approaching trials for combined harvesters, which do all the various jobs at one and the same time, have great mechanical interest, but are of less interest to British than overseas farmers. Of the marvels of the machines there is no question and they have been used successfully—in Hampshire, for example. But England is not Canada. The fields are small. The straw is valuable. Above all, it is almost a universal experience that the grain must be left in sheaf for a while after it is cut. There is a maturing process, superimposed on the ripening process; and for this no place is left if threshing and cutting are simultaneous. Old Tusser's couplet still holds : "Reap well, scatter not, gather clean that is shorn, Bind fast, shock apace, have an eye to thy corn."
Is that word " shock " going out of fashion as a technical term ? Recently I have heard more literary alternatives used where once the old word was general.
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