390
living is of a very different description. Except the singlequart of moderate table beer, worth about twopence, allowedfor dinner in harvest, the generality of husbandry labourersof Scotland have no other allowance of drink throughout theyear. The people employed in leading home the crop to thestack-yard, and the stackers, have an allowance, in addition'to what the other harvest labourers receive, of half a dinnerloaf, and a second quart of beer in the afternoon, as they al-ways work, when corn is ready, as long as they can possiblysee, even by moon light.
It was once almost universal to give the harvest people asupper and dance, with a tolerable allowance of drink, atthe end of harvest, called the kirn or quern. This is nowmuch fallen into neglect, and the people in lieu thereof ge-nerally get each a shilling, a dram, a dinner loaf, and aquarter of a pound of cheese. In other places the whole iscommuted into money. These kirns or querns frequentlyterminated in drunken frolics, but were, on the whole, acheerful rural festival, and under proper superintendanccmight still be kept up.
SECT. XIII.
OF STACKING.
WHen the crop is ready to be carried, as described in thepreceding section, it is led home to the stack-yard in openspar-built carts, constructed on purpose, and is almost uni-versally built into round stacks or ricks. The operation offorking into the carts, for waggons are unknown in Scotch hus-bandry, and the manner of building the sheaves in the carts,and of securing them from falling off while conveying to therick-yard, need not be described. But the manner of build-