Wheat Workers
Except perhaps a cook surveying her lines of bottled fruit or jam, no one gets such pleasure from evidence of accomplished work as a farmer in the spectacle of a great corn-stack, especially if it be wheat.
I saw last week the last sheafs being laid on a magnificent stack of wheat, placed, as authority has advised, separately in its own field. The extra harvest hands employed on this farm include a local inn- keeper or two and a postman, who has been wont to take his holiday to this end. There is much more promiscuous labour of this kind sprinkled about the country than even the agricultural committees have realised. Herein is one reason why the land army of young women has been less in demand than was expected or hoped. At the ingathering of harvest country folk are rather like worker bees, or, for that matter, wasps: possessed with a passion for work in the sun. When the date is over they return to their native occupations, or leisure. The land army will be in increasing demand when harvest is over. Some of the most efficient land girls within my own acquaint- ance have taken holiday during harvest, but have been under long- standing engagement to return as soon as the ploughs could be set to work. The harvest will be virtually completed within the scope of August. Many wheat crops are magnificent ; oats and barley are good, and all three are many points better than their promise-thanks
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