1790. Wechts or maunds for taking up corn from the bin or floor, of the form of h, fig. 145, are made either of withes or of skin, attached to a rim of wood. One of fir withes, with a rim of oak, costs 2s. 6d. A young calf's skin with the hair on, or sheep's skin without the wool, tacked to the rim in a wet state, after becoming dry and hard, makes a better and more durable wecht than wood. Wechts should be made of different sizes; two as large as two fulls shall fill the bushel with ease, and others of smaller diameter, and less depth of rim, to take up the corn from the fanner, to give to the riddlers. Baskets of close and beautiful wicker-work, such as fig. 163, are used in barns in parts of England instead of wechts.

Fig. 163.

THE CORN-BASKET OF WICKER-WORK.

1791. A stout four-legged stool, 2 feet long, 9 inches broad, and 9 inches high, fig. 164, made of ash, is useful in a barn,

1793. A couple of wooden scoops, such as fig. 166, to shovel up the corn in heaps, Fig. 166. are indispensable implements in a corn-barn. The scoop is 3 feet 3 inches in height, with a head like a common spade; a helve 18 inches in length, and the blade 14 inches wide and 16 inches long. The blade, helve, and handle, are all of one piece of wood, of plane-tree, the belly of the scoop being a little hollowed out, and its back thinned away to the sides and face. This is a convenient size of scoop for women's use, and who have most occasion to use it, and it is also light. In THE CORN SCOOP. the granaries in towns, scoops are made longer, with a handle of a separate piece of ash, and are clumsy implements when made of more than one piece of wood. A wooden scoop does not injure a floor so much as an iron spade, and better retains the corn upon its face, in the act of shovelling.

1794. Brooms are useful implements in a steading, to sweep the different sorts

of floors, and they are formed of materials suited best to clean the particular sort of floor. For sweeping the floors of causewayed or paved stables and byres, the twigs of the birch tree form the most elastic and durable brooms. They are tied together with stout twine in bundles of about 6 inches in diameter at the tied end, and 2 feet in length. A wooden handle of about 3 feet in length is driven into the tied end, and is kept in its place by a pin passed through it and the twigs. The sweeping end receives such a trimming with the knife as to give it a flattened face to the ground, sloped away to a point. Fresh twigs make the best brooms, and after they have become perfectly dry, they are very brittle. Brooms for the cornbarn and granaries are best made of stems of the broom plant, (Genista scoparia,) and I presume the instrument derived its name from the plant being so used, which is simply tied together with twine at one end, about 3 feet in length, and used without a handle. The broom is also in the best state when fresh, and becomes very brittle on being dried. When long straight stems of the common ling (Calluna vulgaris) can be procured, they make both good and durable brooms. The harder birch is required to clear the dirt from between the stones of a causeway, and the softer broom answers best to keep the barn-floor. Hair brooms do not answer, as bristles have not strength to clear away the heavier dust often encountered in barns. Perhaps brooms of whalebone would answer better than broom, but I have seen none of them as yet tried in the country.

1795. Nails should be driven at convenient places in the walls and partitions of the barn, to hang the riddles, wechts, and sieves upon.

1796. The necessary implements being described, the heap of grain, suppose it to be wheat, is next to be winnowed. For this purpose, the blower, fig. 149, is placed alongside the heap, with its tail away from the direction in which it is proposed to place the new riddled heap of grain with its offside, that is, its side farthest from the driver, next the heap. steward adjusts the component parts of the blower to suit the nature of the grain

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to be winnowed-namely, the tail-board, go, fig. 150, should be no higher up than to allow the chaff to escape over it, while it retains the lightest even of the grain; the slide, m d, in the interior, should only be so far up as to permit the light grain to be blown over it, while it retains all the heaviest, which pours down dn to the floor. What falls from this slide is the light corn, and it drops nearest the chaff. The wire-screen below this slide on d n permits dust and small seeds of wild plants to pass through, and deposits them between the light and heavy corn. The opening of the sluice at the feedingroller k and h is so adjusted as that the grain shall fall as fast, but no faster, than the wind shall have power to blow away the chaff and light corn from amongst the heavy. All these adjustments of parts may not be made the most perfect at once. but a little trial will soon direct him what requires to be rectified, and experience of the machine will enable him to hit near the mark at once. The blower should be made to stand firmly and steadily on the floor when used.

1797. The arrangement of the persons who winnow the corn, so as to proceed with regularity and despatch, is this:-The steward drives the blower. One woman fills the hopper with corn with a large wecht, or the basket, fig. 163, from the heap, on the opposite side from the driver. Her duty is to keep the hopper as nearly full as she can, as then the issue of corn from it is most regular, and she is assisted in doing this the more easily by the use of the barn-stool, fig. 164. Another woman, with a smaller wecht, takes up the good grain as it slides down upon the floor, with the wooden hoe, fig. 165, and divides the wechtful between the other two women. who each stand with a riddle, fig. 152 or 157, in her hand at the place where the new heap is to be made. The heap is made in one corner, or against any part of a wall of the barn, to take up as little room as possible. When the two women have received the grain into their riddles, they riddle it, bringing the last part of each riddling towards the edge of the heap, and casting what is left as the scum in the riddles into the bushel, as a receiver, placed conveniently to receive it. The riddlings consist of capes, large.

2 D

grains, sprouted grains, small stones, the larger class of seed of weeds, that could not pass through the wire-screen in the blower, clods of earth, bits of straw too heavy to be blown away, and such like. By the time the women have riddled the quantity given them, the other woman has taken up as much from the floor at the blower as to supply them with a fresh quantity. When the corn begins to accumulate amongst the riddlers' feet, one of them takes the wooden scoop, fig. 166, and drawing with it the tail or edge of the heap into a small heap, gives it up in portions to the other riddler, who puts the remains of the riddlings into the bushel; after which the large heap is shovelled up against the wall, while the scattered grain on the floor is swept towards it with a broom i, fig. 145, by one of the riddlers, or the woman who gives up the corn from the blower, as the case may be. While the unwinnowed heap is becoming less, as the riddled one increases in bulk, the woman who has charge of it shovels it also up at times, and sweeps in its edge, that no scattered grains may be permitted to lie upon the floor to get crushed with her shoes. All the women should endeavour to do their respective parts in a neat and cleanly way. There is much difference in the mode of working evinced by different women in the barn, some constantly spilling grain on the floor, when they have occasion to lift it with a wecht, evincing the slattern; but it is the duty of the steward to correct every instance of carelessness; whilst others keep the floor clean, and handle all the instruments they use with skill and neatness.

1798. The thrashed heap of corn being thus passed through the blower, and riddled in the manner described into another heap, the chaffy matter blown upon the floor is then carried away to the dunghill, and the light corn subjected to examination, as well as the riddlings in the bushel. When the grain is of fine quality, there will be no good grain, and little bulk in the light corn heap, which may all be put past for hen's meat; but, in other circumstances, the light corn, together with what is in the bushel, should again be put through the fanners, and all the grain taken out of it that would not injure the clean corn, when mixed with

1799. When corn is dressed clean. there should nothing be seen but good grains, no shrivelled grains, no seeds of other plants, no clods of earth, no straw, no chaffed grains. It is highly probable that the dressing described above will be sufficient to clean the corn; but should any earth or small seeds be still detected amongst it, and the blower cannot separate these, the corn should be sifted through a sieve, fig. 161 or 162. Should light substances be still detected along with shrivelled grain, the whole should again be put through the fanner, and riddled as before described. Should light substances only be found, these may be blown away by the fanner, and the corn will not again be required to be riddled, but measured into the bushel, and put into sacks from the fanner. Good grain will be sufficiently dressed by one passage through the fanners, but that of inferior quality will require twice putting through; or should a superior class of fanner be used, such as fig. 146, grain of even very inferior quality may be made sufficiently clean by one winnowing. In general, oats are made clean by one winnowing, but wheat and barley require two thorough winnowings, that is, twice through the fanner, and twice riddled.

1800. Suppose, then, that the corn has been treated as last described, and lies in a heap to be measured into sacks, the arrangements for doing this is seen in fig. 167, where a is the steward with the strike in his right hand, ready to strike the corn in the bushel b, which is in the act of being filled by the two women cc, who are pouring a wechtful each into it at the same time, and in such quantity, as to fill it at Other two women dd are holding the mouth of the sack e ready for the bushel to be emptied into it. The first two bushelfuls are emptied into the sack from

once.

nearest them, and while they raise the bushel a little by means of the sack, the steward turns the bushel over from him, pouring the grain completely out of it into the elevated mouth of the sack; and thence sustaining the weight of the empty bushel with both hands, he sets it down by the handle beside the heap of corn, with one handle towards the heap and the other towards the sack, ready again to be filled. Four bushels, or half a quarter of grain, are put into one sack. The sack, when full, is wheeled away by the steward with the sack-barrow f amongst the other sacks at g; and while the steward is doing this, one of the women d brings forward an empty sack from the heap h, which had been laid neatly down by the steward, in sufficient number to contain all the corn in the heap, or what portion of it may be desired to be measured up at the time. As the heap i diminishes, one of the women c shovels it into smaller space with the scoop k, and sweeps the floor clean towards the heap with the broom 7, and then the whole party advance nearer the heap. It is customary for the two sets of women c c and d d to take the filling of the bushel by turns every four sacks filled, as the holding of the sacks is attended with little fatigue, compared to filling the bushel.

1801. There are some particulars regarding the measuring up of grain which require attention. In the first place, the bushel should be filled at once, because

it will hold more corn when filled with two separate wechtfuls than with two at once, the first wechtful getting time to subside before the other is poured above it.

1802. In the next place, the wechtfuls should not be poured into the bushel from a great height, as the higher fall compresses more grains into the bushel. The women, cc in fig. 167, are purposely shown pouring the corn from too great a height into the bushel.

1803. Another consideration is, that the bushel be striked immediately after it is filled. To do it quickly, the corn raised in the centre of the bushel by the pouring should be levelled with a wave of the fingers of the left hand, in the lightest manner, so as to make it spread around towards, and not lower than, the edge of the bushel farthest from the heap, and this part of the edge is sweeped with the side of the same hand, to clear it of every grain of corn, and make it ready for the strike to be applied, which should always be drawn towards the heap, in order to make the superfluous grain striked off fall as near it as practicable. As a proof how much grain sinks in a bushel in a very short time after it has been striked, a space in the inside of the rim will be seen all the way round, the moment that the bushel is touched to be emptied; but a more obvious proof is obtained on striking the mouth of the bushel with a smart stroke of the strike, and the grain will immediately subside a considerable space.