A horse that is kittle may be so owing to temperament or mischance or ill-breeding or ill-treatment. However it be so, it will prove a danger for its master. So it is with wives. This day I found the straw doll hung from the beam in the cow-house by its neck. I burnt it forthwith. It was indicated to me by one of the servants, who was paid 6d for his silence. The Chapel was knocked down this day, it being only a flimsy structure of wood, and the new to be begun forthwith. Farmer Garrard was over this day, and averred, on surveying my new clover crop, that he might adopt this method of seeding, viz.: to sow the seed in the husk, that it might prove to crop more evenly and thicker, whereas to sow clover-seed on its own, pure, milled from the husk, perforce proves too light a cast in the March winds. I said, that it might be advantageous, then, to mix the seed with sand, or sifted coal, or wood-ash, to give the half-pecks weight, that it might fill the seeds-man’s hand, and not prove too buoyant. He stated, that this was good advice, if the seed were milled, as oatmeal is, but that effort might be spared in the first place by retaining the husk anyways. Farmer Garrard’s own clover field, mixed with Polish oats, that shadows it from this summer heat, is exceeding thin in places, owing to the blustery days in which the pure seed was cast, and scattered errantly. I averred that I would use this digression in my Sunday speech in the Chapel, as a parable fitting to the times. The seed being the soul, and the husk being the body, or flesh. We are cast into this life with the trappings of our flesh, that gives us weight, whereas if we deny the flesh, we are too light, and buoyant, like a cloud of bedwine seed, and know not where we go, as a man who denies himself meat grows thin, and lassitudinous. United in the flesh, our soul grows a goodly crop of virtue, the winds and rains our sufferings, that gives us exercise and greenness, and not to be shirked. Farmer Garrard, who is a Church man, said that the sermon for him mentioned flesh overmuch, although he is himself fleshy, and we laughed.
Being in the town this day, I viewed the new Corn Exchange, which is exceeding large, and pretty, and built after the manner of a Roman temple. I did good business with a corn merchant from Salisbury, and got a price for a winnowing machine which I must consider, and bought two barley hummellers of improved design. I avoided the new toll-gate by crossing a pasture, which amused my servant greatly. Returning through Ulverdon, I met Mr Webb, the wainwright, who was cutting a mortice into the nave of my new wheel, and who stated he would dish the wheel, it being large enough, at little extra cost. He demonstrated to me his new bruzz, this being a chisel of the shape of a V for the mortice-corners, and much neater in action than his previous tool. It is of much concern to him that a man died owing to the splitting of a wheel he had made, and fears for his reputation. I told him, that I thought it more my doing than his, because I did not cover the waggon through the storms of December, and that the frostiness and dryness of the later winter was all to blame. At the bridge over the river, a vagrant with a mongrel begged for harvest work, but he had no passport. On stating that passports, certificates and suchlike were not required for harvest work, he placed me at a disadvantage as a Christian man, and I had resort to the truth, which was that I did not approve of his face, this being sharpish, and of a gingery stubble cut through by a white scar. He cursed me then and there, which was discomfiting, as his curse was that of the magic arts, and spoke of progeny to be blasted et cetera, et cetera. My servant and a passing neighbour, Mr Hobbs, threw the man into the river, and Mr Hobbs went to tell the warden, that the Justice might be informed of a needed removal.
Harebells thick upon the waysides and pastures. Larkspur, buttercups, and the ramping fumitory amongst the arable. Hoeing does not coerce these into submission, but they are not sufficiently tall or thick to be a veritable nuisance to the crop, as redweed is, or dead-nettle. The advantage of clover, St Foin etc.: to reduce pernicious weeds. The naked fallow, that I dunged with rags at the second earth, and which Farmer Barr prophesied an abundance of redweed for, has grown up again thickly with that cursed flower, and being a dry, hot year, has turned friable and loose, so that any rain that it receives will run through, without benefit to the wheat I am to sow there. If I were to have left it fallow for a third year, then it might have proved fast and good. But by our errors we learn, and prosper, as much as by our virtues. I might leave it as a fallows-stale for a further year.
During the harvest, which began Monday last, despite threatening weather, my maid aided the gatherers, which concerned me, but it is the practice amongst the commoners to labour until the final week. She raked together the gleanings, and did not bend to sheave, as this is arduous for one large in belly. The barley is not good, but sufficient. The oils are taller, the husks thicker, than is customary in a wetter year. My sickles are smooth-edged, as the custom of grasping the corn in bunches to cut seems to me to hold up progress, and the smooth edge cuts straight through without the requirement to bunch. However, barley being of a thicker stalk than other crops, the sickles must be sharpened more frequently, their edges taken off by the stalks, and so my cousin at Effley is insistent on using the serrated blade, which requires no strickle to keep it keen. For a proper comparison, one must try both types, and keep careful time on the acres, that one may be seen to be advantageous over the other, although, for an exact, scientific comparison, reapers of the same strength, age, and application must be used, which is a near impossibility, as every labourer appears, these days, to have his own peculiarities of temperament. But the harvest progresses, anyways, and the weather holds off, it still being exceedingly hot, and one labourer already overcome, though he had no shirt. The air is very dusty, and I have my sneezes, but the sound of the cut corn, like unto the rustling skirt of Nature herself, pleases me as greatly as usual. We have caught twenty-three rabbits and a stoat.
My wife walks at night.
The practice of mowing corn with a scythe is not common in these parts, as women find the effort too arduous, and there are not the men to go round. I have heard it to be three to four times as speedier, with one acre per man mown in a day, compared to but a quarter with the sickle. However, it is possible only with an abundance of strong men, despite the amelioration of time, and in this instance I am content to wait until English genius has conjured a suitable machine that will necessitate no rows of dogged reapers, gatherers, bandsters and whatnot, although I fear that time will be long a-coming. I have this day, walking about the top field with my stick, lifted fifty-five docks, and an abundance of bindweed, and almost as much shepherd’s purse. I watch my maid from a distance, whom I have replaced part of the day in the house with the old dame named Trevick. This old dame reeks terribly from the armpits, and has the most sour piss, which makes the houses of office stink long after she has visited, and makes me concerned for the ordure beneath, that it prove to make injurious manure. My maid consorts with the other harvesters most loosely, and they make much fun of her condition. I fear for the child in this heat. The price of the winnowing machine is too high, I have decided. My new throw-crook, of improved design, having its spindle caged and the handle cranked, has been taken to with some reluctance, but it now proves a most efficient and speedy maker of straw-rope, despite its old-fashioned mortal operators, who would still be berry-picking like children for their sustenance if society had been left to their charge.