Wherever the sickle is used for reaping, the straw is cut at a certain height from the ground, and the remainder forms a long stubble, which is usually mown at leisure after harvest, and carried Into the yard for litter ; • but iu the neighbourhood of large towns, where straw is sold at a good price, or exchanged for stable dung, it is important that as much as possible of it should be cut with the corn. This has introduced the practice called fagging, and sometimes bagging, the origin of which provincial expression is not well known. The instru ment used for this purpose partakes of the nature of a scythe, as well as of a reaping-hook. It is shaped like a sickle, but is much larger and broader; and instead of being indented like a saw, it has a sharp edge like a scythe, which is renewed when blunt by means of a stone or bat. The fagging.hook cuts the straw close to the ground by a stroke of the hand ; and its curved form is only useful in collecting stray stems, and holding a certain quantity of them between it and the left hand of the reaper when he makes up a sheaf. A certain quantity is cut towards the standing corn, the left hand pressing it down at the same time, When as much is thus cut an would make half a small sheaf, the reaper comes backwards, cutting in a db•cction at right angles to the first, and rolling together the two parts, which he carries iu the bend of his hook and places on the band which has been prepared for him. A full-sized sheaf is usually composed of two cuttings. Two men will fully employ a third to make bands for them, tie up the sheaves, and act them up. This method of reaping is laborious, on account of the stooping required to cut near the ground. The Ifain ault scythe, which has been described in most agricultural works, does the work better, and with less fatigue. It is in fact a fagging-hook, not quite so curved, of which the handle is longer, and placed at an angle with the plane of the blade. It requires some practice to give the proper swing to it by a peculiar motion of the wrist; but when this is once acquired, a considerable saving of labour and time is effected. Many attempts have been inade to bring it into use in England ; but, from the obstinacy of the labourers, or the want of perseverance in the masters, without much success. A better instru ment, however, on extensive farms, is the cradle-scythe, which, in the hands of an expert mower, will do more work and more effectually secure all the straw than any other instrument.
The objection to the great barn-room required for so much straw is obviated by the practice of stacking the corn in the open air, on proper stands to keep it dry and out of the reach of vermin. The additional trouble in threshing is not so great as that of mowing or raking the stubble, which is generally deferred till half of it is lost by decomposi tion by the air and moisture. When the saving of time is considered as well as the saving of expense, there seems to be no doubt that on an extensive farm the scythe is far preferable to the sickle for cutting every kind of grain. Barley and oats are usually mown and carried
without tying them into sheaves, but this is a slovenly and wasteful practice : by means of the cradle-scythe they may bo mown so regu larly as to bo readily tied into sheaves; and the additional expense will be fully compensated by the saving of all the corn which, being on the outside of the stack, is lost by the depredations of small birds.
Beans are usually reaped by the sickle, the stems being too strong and too wide apart to admit of the scythe. Where it can be done conveniently, without the soil adhering too much to the roots, it is better to pull them up, and tie them in bundles with straw hands, or tar-twine, which will be found both a convenient and economical method.
Peas are generally reaped by means of two large hooks similar to the fagging-hooks, one of which is held in each hand ; and the stems, which are generally much interwoven, are partly cut and partly torn from the roots, and so rolled up into a small bundle laid loose in order that it may dry. Tares are reaped in the same way.
The expense of reaping corn is considerable, especially where the population is scanty. In the eastern counties men are engaged for the whole harvest, which, in favourable weather, is supposed to be com pleted in a month. During this time they have their usual daily wages, with or without food, and a certain sum besides, as harvest money. In other districts the labourers reap the corn by the acre, with a certain allowance of beer, or money instead of it. The price of fagging in Middlesex and within 30 miles around London varies from nine to twelve shillings per acre, according to the crop, and if it is lodged, as much as fifteen shillings is often paid, including beer. The use of the scythe considerably diminishes the expense, as fewer labourers are required.
There have been many attempts to introduce machinery for reaping corn ; and within the 'past ten years the principle of the reaping machine, invented by the Rev. Mr. Bell, of Forfarshire, a quarter of a century ago, and since successfully carried out in the United States of America, has been largely applied by many makers on both sides of the Atlantic, and we have now ten or twelve different reaping-machines, more or less differing from Bell's reaper, in successful operation. Many thousands of such machines are now at work-in this country, and effect a great saving both of time and money at harvest time. Crosskill, of Beverley, manufactures Bell's reaper; Burgess & Key, of Newgate street, manufacture M'Cormick's reaper, in which a serrated edge, oscil lating in front of the corn, cuts it and lays it on a traversing screwplat form, by which, as in Bell's, it is carried aside and laid in swathes on the ground. Cuthbert, of Bedal, and many others, manufacture a smaller machine, in which the corn is delivered from the platform on which it falls by a man who rides on the machine. All these machines are in extensive and successful use.