HARVESTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 16, 19 January 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

HARVESTING.

A TOWN MAN'S HOLIDAY.

DELIGHTS OF THE WORK

THE SHREWD FARMER.

(By RJL.K.)

The gathering-in of the harvest, coming as it does as a big added strain juet at a heavy season of the year, is a nightmare to the poor "cocky"; but to the stranger from town this is the most spectacular and delightful phase of the work on the farm. If a man works in a school or an office, he may toil all the year, and, at the end of it, see little reward for his exertion. The children he has taught go off to forget his teachings, or the ledgers he has filled pass away to the destructor. It is a far more satisfying thing to work in a hayfield, where two or three days' effort will produce a monument so substantial as a haystack. It is at this time, too, that earth shows at its best; the many months of care are now consummated in a few weeks of yield. Nature served shows herself more bountiful than when "the annual earth lays down her tawny hair."

Other holiday-makers may prefer the more languid delights of the camping party or the world of civilisation, and turn with disgust from the thought of "leaving off work to carry bricks." And admittedly they have some grounds for their objections. Sometimes, when the fierce sun has beaten down hard all day; when the water has grown warm despite all your efforts to shade it; when the hay comes out of the sweeps in tightly-matted cigars, which make one sweat and curse in the unrolling; when the stack is growing higher, and the hay is growing heavier, and showers of filth tumble out of every forkful so that the eyes of the pitchers are halfblinded—then, it must be confessed, at times it is hard to convince yourself you are really having such a great time. Of course, all bosses are not angels, either, and some farmers will drive their workers like slaves.

A Fine Life. Yet, for all that, it is a flue game, and as honest and clean as anything on earth. It is a fine thing to be carrying your swag down a quiet road on a summer's morning. It is fine, too, to scent the sweet smell of new-mown grass, and turn in to the house of the farmer who owns it. "Wanting a hand in the field, boss?" If he is not, he probably gives you a meal and advice as to where to find work. Or it may be that he is a hand short, and you stay on with him. In this case you may act as "crow" (that is, fork hay to the builder), or you may work the lifter; or, if there it no lifting contrivance, you may be one of the pitchers—in which ease you will go home with an aching back. Perhaps you may drive the rake or the sweep. It is not likely that you will do the building, that position is usually better paid than the others, for it it tricky work. In most districts there is a recognised expert at the art. I know of one old man who boasts that he has built stacks for sixty seasons, and never yet had one slip. ' ' "'"

For my own part, I always prefer the job of pitching the hay on to the stack. It is hard work, but does not require much nicety—a brute strength and ignorance job. For the first few hours the man from town with his soft muscles wonders if lie will see eleven o'clock before he dies. At eleven the billy ia boiled,' all hands have tea, roll their cigarettes (no one thinks of smoking tailor-mades in the country), and then 101 l back for a few ecstatic minutes of rest. It would be glorious at any time' to lie at ease in the shade and turn one's eyes from the fields of vivid green -to the purple mountains that run beyond, or the blue sky bent above them. It is ten thousand times more glorious when the time comes as a respite from unaccustomed toil. After that first initiation, too, one begins to suffer less from the work, and to bave more energy for taking pleasure in the sights and sounds and smells of the field. An old hand like myself now begins to remember past harvests, as the familiar sensations gradually stir memories that have lain dormant. Each pleasure that I now experience is reinforced by the ones that I knew of old; every delight that comes to dinner brings with it two or three jolly relations whose existence I had long forgotten. What the Fanner Thinks. To one who is interested in what men say and think, the talk of the harvest field is a "perpetual feast of nectared sweets." Such people as Steele Rudd drew may have actually existed somewhere, at some time, but one would be hard put to it to find their like in the New Zealand rural districts today. There is little of the simple rustic or grinning yokel about our farmers. Every member of the younger generation, at any rate, has had enough education to think intelligently. With a farmer's long hours of labour, be gets little time for reading, but much time for thought; so that his ideas are well digested, and he can handle them with ease. Many farmers have travelled far and worked at many trades before coming on to the land. These tall, open-faced men are a match, or often more than a match, for the man from the town. I remember in particular one young man fresh from Home who came on to the field expecting to show his shrewdness at the expense of the silly husbandmen. At the end of the day one of the latter remarked to me: "Lord, 'e dunno wot to make of it. 'E thought 'e was gonna take the shine out of us poor country cdves—but, instead of that, we chiacked 'im so that we 'ad 'im nearly in tears." While the Englishman complained to me, with some bitterness, that "These 'ere cowcockies are the most ignoran' lot on earth. They ain't been nowere, 'n they don't know nothin'." There is no wonder that the men in the field love to sit and yarn. "Look at them yapping away," said a swart, burly, rabbit-trapper, with a grin. "Worse than a crowd of old dames at a ladies' guild when the vicar drops in. But I suppose it's the only time in the year that they gel together. There's none too much fancy visiting and afternoon tea parties where cow-cockies are concerned."

Of course, one of the main topics is that of politics. , In this, as in most other things, the fanner is inclined to judge philosophically rather than from any biased viewpoint. This Attitude of detachment is particularly marked at the present time, owing to the fact that no on* of our three political parties has much attraction for the small

farmer. Needless to say, the work of the farm occupies a large part of the conversation, but that is of little interest to the uninitiated. In every gang there are usually two or three who have been to the front, and a man may hear more tales of war from them in a day than in a year of city life. The unofficial history that may thus be learnt is most enthralling, and provides a most ironically amusing commentary on official narrations. There are manylittle tales of wild nights in Egypt, or riotous days in France—tales which seemed never to find their way into even the most detailed official histories. The talk often turns to discussing the best brands of beer and tobacco; to anecdotes concerning the old rouseabouts, and tramps and such strange men as the country sometimes produces; to tales of bushfelling and pighunting, strikes and wild riots, and police and prisons. One's fellow-workers are usually a mixed lot, and there is little room for social snobbery. Here you may work side by side with a man for a month, and have no idea what is his surname or social position. In the long run you majr find that Tom is a wealthy landowner, and Dick is a tramp, and Harry is a professor on holiday. I remember one extreme case when I discussed Ibsen with the man on my right, and a little while later got from my left-hand neighbour a few hints on "How to Pass the Night Under a Hedge."

So the day is passed with work, and talk and eating, and drinking—there is plenty of all, especially the last. Custom decrees oatmeal-water while the work is doing, but when all is over, we shall take up a tarpaulin-muster and get a keg out. When darkness falls we shall all ride back to the house in the old wagon;.then, perhaps, will come a wild and glorious gallop home. Then a wash, tea, maybe a sing-song, and then bed; and although the mattress may be one sack, and the blanket may be another sack, I can safely count on snoring away ten hours without one dream to trouble.