Hay cart

“ At the annual Wakes a large quantity of rushes are collected together, and loaded on a cart, almost to the height of a load of hay. They are bound on the cart, and cut evenly at each end. On the Saturday evening a number of men sit on the top of the rushes, holding garlands of artificial flowers, tinsel, &c. ”

“ Generally speaking, it consists of a frame carrying a revolving web with tines or prongs. The implement is hitched on behind a cart or wagon, and as it moves forward the web picks the loose hay off the ground and delivers it on the top, where a man levels it with a pitchfork and builds it into a load ready to move to the stack. At the stack the most convenient method of transferring the hay from a cart, wagon or sweep rake is the elevator, a tall structure with a revolving web carrying teeth or spikes (fig. 6) . ”

“ The hay is all carried in baskets on the backs of women. It was a pitiful sight to see them groaning under their loads, often stopping by the roadside to rest. I longed to see one of our Berkshire farmers enter the hay-field with a pair of lusty oxen and a huge cart, which would transport at a single load 203 a weight, such as would break the backs of all the women in an Italian village. ”

“ Sled-runners were made from saplings bent at the root. The best thills for a cart were those naturally shaped by growth. The curved pieces of wood in the harness of a draught-horse, called the hames, to which the traces are fastened, could be found in twisted growths, as could also portions of ox-yokes. The gambrels used in slaughtering times, hay-hooks, long-handled pothooks for brick ovens, could all be cut ready-shaped. ”

“ Meanwhile, he calculated, the village policeman would incorporate an artistic element of complication into the afternoon's entertainment.
IV Suddenly, as the trio strolled in constrained silence down an aisle of high hollyhocks, there came to their ears a crunching sound upon the gravel of the drive, and a small governess cart, drawn by a fat grey pony, entered the Vicarage gateway and proceeded in the direction of the stable. The driver of the cart had his back turned, but Archibald could see that he wore a soft black clerical hat. The Old Flick had arrived, and the cast was completed. ”

“ They all have a kind of music-box attachment, operated by the turning of the axle to which the wheels of the toys, as well as those of some of the real carts, are fixed.
The toy carts are made of tin, wood and clay. Some of them are very simple, having paper covers, while others possess the whole paraphernalia of the street carts. When the mule of the toy cart is unhitched and unharnessed, he looks like a very respectable mule. Nevertheless, instead of devouring food, he becomes the prey of insects. ”

“ Horrid little carts—common carts—canary-coloured carts!'
"What are we to do with him?" asked the Mole of the Water Rat.
"Nothing at all," replied the Rat firmly. "Because there is really nothing to be done. You see, I know him from of old. He is now possessed. He has got a new craze, and it always takes him that way, in its first stage. He'll continue like that for days now, like an animal walking in a happy dream, quite useless for all practical purposes. Never mind him. Let's go and see what there is to be done about the cart." ”

“ Looking seaward, swarms of carts are visible going to and from lighters or small vessels at anchor in the inner road, the only means by which shipping can be discharged or loaded, the merchandise exposed of course to damage from being wet, as the horses are often up to their chests, and the cart itself even higher, in the water, through which it has to be dragged for a mile and upwards. ”

“ The loan of a carro, with its pair of bullocks and a man to guide them, having been obtained from one of the corn-farms, the cart is rigged up with esteras—that is, an esparto matting is stretched round the poles which, fixed on the sides, serve to hold the load of sheaves in position. A few sacks of straw thrown upon the floor of the cart serve to save one, in some small degree, from the merciless jolting of this primitive conveyance on rough ground. ”

“ In a cleared space in the centre of the field is a cart. It looks very much like the carts which are used to convey bulls through thoroughfares in town. Only, unlike those, this is roofed over. It is also more elegantly fashioned. The wheels, which are tolerably clean, are painted bright scarlet, while the cart itself is chastely decorated in two shades of green. Some little distance behind it, in the charge of the huntsman and two whippers-in, are the hounds. ”

“ The father, according to his custom, followed the chase on horseback, the old woman, seated amongst robes and camp baggage, drove the creaking Red river cart, whilst the young girl was in and out of the vehicle like an eager young spirit of the prairie.
That season there were very few carts which came to the plains after buffalo. The great herds that used to blacken the country to the rim of the horison had thundered away into the limbo of the lost, and all that was left of them was a few stragglers that still haunted some of the more remote valley bottoms. ”

“ Then a train of Anamese carts passed, empty, the solid wooden wheels creaking frightfully round the ungreased axles, each cart being drawn by two buffaloes, each pair being attached to the cart in front by a rope through the nostrils, so that one driver sufficed for eleven carts. The native men could not be said to be clothed, but, as I remarked before, the mercury was above 90 degrees. ”

“ In towns where the house refuse is not collected separately from the road scrapings, a judicious mixture of the two in the cart considerably assists in preventing any mud from splashing over or the dust from blowing about.
The employment of wooden carts for this work is bad economy, their rough usage, and the mode adopted for emptying them by “tipping,” renders their life a short one; a cart in constant work frequently costs from 4l. to 5l. per annum in repairs, and having but little of the original material of which it was constructed left in it at the end of six years. ”

“ The country carts, in which they transport their produce from the interior, deserve notice. They are the most awkward, heavy and singular vehicles ever seen; and one of them passing through our streets, would attract as much notice as a moving menagerie. The cart is, in fact, about the height of a two story house, the sides and roof formed of flags and cane, but the bottom of hard and solid wood, which, with the wheels, are monstrously clumsy. ”

“ Not we who are free and strong. Our faith and arms with a right good will Shall push our carts along.”
At Wood River the plains seethed with buffalo, a frightened herd of which one night caused a stampede of their cattle. After that the frail carts had to relieve the wagons of a part of their loads, in order that the remaining animals could draw them, each cart taking on a hundred more pounds. ”

“ And between the station of each wife there is the distance of a stone's throw, so that the court of a rich Moal appears like a large city, but in which there are very few men. One girl is able to lead twenty or thirty carts; for the ground being quite plain, they fasten the carts, whether drawn by camels or oxen, behind each other, and the girl sits on the front of the foremost cart of the string, directing the cattle, while all the rest follow with an equable motion. ”

“ These carts are not only clumsy and heavy, but they give an overweighted diminutive appearance to the horse between the shafts, especially as the quality of horse employed for work of this character is frequently none of the best, and as a matter of fact the cart is so ill-balanced that the bulk of its weight is thrown upon the back of the horse. ”

“ A short time before eleven o'clock a man dressed in seedy black cloth, with short iron-grey, whiskers and beard, and long iron-grey hair and wearing blue spectacles, turned into the street, and sat down in a crouching position on the axle-tree of a cart, whose shafts, like a pair of slender telescopes, pointed to the dim summer stars, or taken together the cart and man looked like a huge flying beetle, the body of the cart being the wings, the wheels the high elbowed legs, the man the body of the insect and the two long shafts the antennae thrust upwards in alarm. ”

“ They have a long body, that is, long for a cart, and this is laden with the varied products of the small farms which are in this way taken to market. Most frequently these carts are drawn by one horse, though it is not unusual to see two or three horses hitched to one when the load is heavy. ”

“ As they have no tires, and the section of the wheel part or crowd together, according to the moisture, a train of these carts bringing in the products of the hunt is a strange sight. Each cart has its own peculiar creak, hoarse and grating, and waggles its own individual waggle, graceless and shaky, on the uneven ground. ”

“ The cart is gayly decorated with flowers and streamers, and the wood conveyed home with much noise and merriment, much in the ancient English style of bringing in the Yule-log. On their return from the forest, the court-yard gate is found to be closed, or else a rope from which are depended straw bunches and bundles, is stretched across the entrance. The women now advance with much clatter of pots and pans, and pretend to defend the yard against the besiegers; but the men tear down the rope and drive in triumphantly, each catching at a straw-bundle in passing. ”

“ A cart, upon which two men are loading the sheaves, forms the central object in the composition, and is in strong contrast against a turbulent sunlit sky beyond. On the right of the field is a piece of waste ground bounded by a hedge of low bushes and trees, around which flutters a flock of birds. ”

“ The buffalo, harnessed to the cart, by the side of his nurse, the cow, took the place of our lost ass, and began his apprenticeship as a beast of draught. We took the same road on our return, that we might carry away the candle-berries and the vessels of India-rubber. The vanguard was composed of Fritz and Jack, who pioneered our way, by cutting down the underwood to make a road for the cart. Our water-pipes, being very long, somewhat impeded our progress; but we happily reached the candle-berry trees without accident, and placed our sacks on the cart. ”

“ He had, however, got a pull on the beasts, and they were slackening a little, but, as ill-luck would have it, on going down a gully one of the wheels caught a tree root, and in a jiffy capsized the cart, sending the driver head over heels into a clump of bracken.
The incident gave fresh impetus to the runaways, who rushed on baaing; dashing at length down the steep incline of the creek, the cart righted itself as it tumbled adown the gradient. They tore over the stream and up the bank, finally leaving the track, and getting boxed up in the scrub. ”

“ Every now and then we met one of the huge, unwieldy carts which seem to be relics of a prehistoric age—rough plank affairs of enormous strength and a design so primitive as to be a constant source of wonder. They could only be pulled along at a slow walk and with vast effort by a couple of huge horses, and the load the cart was carrying never seemed to bear any proportion to the mechanism of its transport. ”

“ Vegetables are conspicuous, but these might be overlooked, whereas the hay and straw carts assail the eye by their immense proportions. They might almost be dubbed lazy men's loads, for they have the appearance of moving hay-stacks and require the most skilful manoeuvring in the midst of so much impetuously driven traffic. These country carts almost give the streets of Paris a provincial flavour, their horses and drivers being more essentially rural than anything one sees in London, even in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. ”

“ It is difficult to leave or enter a town without meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixteen tubs, and by boats. I was told of a city of half a million inhabitants which had thirty per cent. ”

“ Opposite a small cottage a cart packed to a great height, but marvellously balanced on its two huge wheels, stood ready to move off. A wrinkled sad-eyed woman, perched on top, held beside her her grandchild—a silent, wondering little girl. A darkly handsome, strongly-built daughter had tied a cow to the back of the cart. A bent old man began to lead the wide-backed Percheron mare that was yoked to the shafts with the mixture of straps and bits of rope that French farm folk find does well enough for harness. ”

“ Two little boys, with their cart drawn by a sturdy bull-terrier, used often to wait for and race a couple of half-bred mastiffs drawing a cart with two men, the owners running alongside, and jumping on when the carts—mere 296narrow shelves like all dog-carts, whether on wheels or sledges—were going at ten miles an hour. ”

“ A rolling tract of rough land extends away to the horizon, where the sky line is formed by bare hilltops, broken here and there by the branches of leafless trees which grow along a muddy road winding from the right foreground around to the left. A cart drawn by a white horse, accompanied by a peasant, approaches along the road. Large masses of sunlit vapor nearly cover the blue of the sky. ”