Sower

“ The hand sower is a little machine which the farmer straps to his shoulders. The [Pg 115] hopper of the sower is filled with grain and, as the handle is turned, the grain is scattered broadcast to as great a distance as possible. More saving of labor still is the horse sower, which is simply the hand sower on a larger scale. Sometimes the seed is inserted in the ground by means of grain drills, which deposit the grain more evenly and at the same time cover it with earth.
After learning how to sow seed, George began to inquire into the subject of planting. ”

“ Each strikes inwards and works outwards. The whole of a life may be set forth in the pregnant figure, 'A sower went forth to sow,' and 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' The seed may lie long dormant, but the green shoots will appear in due time, and pass through all the stages of 'first the blade, and then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.' The sower has to become the reaper, and the reaper has to eat of the bread made from the product of the long past sowing. Shall we have to reap a harvest of poisonous tares, or of wholesome wheat? ”

“ The ceremony is completed by sacrificing a pig or chicken, and the proceedings terminate with a great feast. This method of celebrating sowing-time with a feast was famous in antiquity. The sower assumes that by filling his own body with food he can stimulate the fertility of the grain. The place and time selected is the [138] largest plantation the sower can find and the season of the new moon, as if to invite the harvest to coincide with the last quarter. ”

“ In the absence of marks it will be necessary to use stakes to guide the sower. Four stakes are used, two of which are set at each end of the field, and these are moved as each cast is made. At each round made over the field, from 12 feet to 15 feet may be sown by the sower who sows only with one hand. ”

“ In our country, when a sower goes forth to his work, he generally enters into an enclosed field, and scatters the seed from his basket along every ridge and furrow; but in the East, the corn-growing country, hard by a small town, is usually an open area. ”

“ In other words, the seed [Pg 19] is sown in strips or bands, as it were, each strip being finished in one round. Some sowers, more expert at their work, sow with both hands and complete the strip each time they walk over the field. When the ground is plowed in lands of moderate width the furrows will serve to enable the sower to sow in straight lines. Where the sowing is done on land sown to grain by the drill, the drill marks may be made to effect the same result. When sown on light snows, the foot-marks will serve as guides. ”

“ If the person intended to be evoked was to be the husband, he would appear behind the sower with a scythe in his hand to mow, and the sower must escape before the scythe reaches her, else some accident will happen. ”

“ Drives from their stalls, to where the well-us'd plow
Lies in the furrow loosen'd from the frost.
There, unrefusing to the harness'd yoke,
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Chear'd by the simple song, and soaring lark.
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.
White thro' the neighbouring fields the sower stalks,
With measur'd step, and liberal throws the grain
Into the faithful bosom of the Ground.
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, Heaven! ”

“ Lamb-hurst, Lamber-hurst, Lamb-ton, Lam-brook, &c.
We find the Scandinavian forms for Sheep (Saudr and Faar) , in
Souter-fell, Souden-hill, the sheep’s hill; Far-leigh, Fars-ley, the sheep’s meadow; Fair-field, the sheep’s field; Souter-gate, the sheep’s street; Fair-ford, the sheep’s ford; Fair-leigh, the sheep’s meadow; Far-a, Far-oe, the sheep’s island.
Sow (Sugu) may be traced in
Sug-ley, the sow’s meadow; So-ham, Suers-ham, the sow’s home; Sug-gate, the sow’s street; Sower-by, the sow’s town. ”

“ A generic term applied by Swainson to the nearly toothless species of Cardium, named C. edentulum by some authors; C. Greenlandicum by others: fig. 123*.
ACASTA. Leach. Order, Sessile Cirripedes, Lamarck. Balanus Montagui, Sowerby. A small genus separated from Balanus, on account of the cup-shaped base, but re-united by Sowerby, who shews, in his Genera of Shells, that this is a merely accidental circumstance, resulting from the situations in which the shells acquire their growth. If, for instance, the Balanus be attached to a flat surface, in an open situation, the base will be short and flat ”

“ You understand most things, Nathaniel, but I am not sure that you understand women—not, at any rate, such a woman as her."
It went against the grain with Mr. Sowerby, this seeking of pecuniary assistance from the very woman whose hand he had attempted to gain about a fortnight since; ”

“ who having consoled him with the assurance that 'he'd catch it,' condescended to help him. Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry appeared. Oliver having 'caught it,' in fulfilment of Noah's prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast. ”

“ The Anglo-Saxon farmers had scarce conquered foothold, stronghold, freehold in the Western wilderness before they became sowers of hemp—with remembrance of Virginia, with remembrance of dear ancestral Britain. ”

“ He who cuts the last stalk “gets the Sow,” and is laughed at.111 In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last corn “has the Sow,” or “has the Rye-sow.”112 In the Traunstein district, Upper Bavaria, the man who cuts the last handful of rye or wheat “has the Sow,” and is called Sow-driver.113 At Friedingen, in Swabia, the thresher who gives the last stroke is called Sow—Barley-sow, Corn-sow, etc., according to the crop. At Onstmettingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing “has the Sow;” ”

“ The sow wouldn't take to the water, nor could the man make her; he tried to put her across, wheelbarrow fashion, holding her up by the hind legs; then he endeavoured to drag her through the water, but she turned right around, bolted in between his legs, upset him in the muddy stream, and the rope slipping from his hand, she took her way up the moors, over hedges and ditches. Tom followed her, through bogs, brambles, and furze for many miles, till they came out in Leah lanes on the Land's End road to Penzance and Sancreed; the sow seemingly never the worse. ”

“ In the meantime I got on my legs, and, seeing the savage sow was inclined to attack me, I sprang on to the chest of drawers, the only safe place I could discover. Here we sat, regularly besieged, for our weapons of offence and defence had been left on the table. The sow, seeming to know the advantage she had gained, kept eyeing us savagely. Indeed, unless we had thought it worth while to run the risk of an attack from her, we saw that we must make up our minds to remain where we were. ”

“ In a moment the truth became apparent! The captive grunter was no fierce native of the forest, but our own runaway sow! Our excitement had been wound to so high a pitch, that the discovery was quite a shock, and we felt half angry with the creature who had disappointed us; then the absurdity of the whole thing made us laugh heartily, and calling off the dogs, the old lady was released from her ignominious position.
Our laughter resounding through the wood, brought Ernest and Jack from their potatoes, to see what was going on. ”

“ Sow, sow, n. a female pig: the metal solidified in parallel grooves or pigs, the iron of these being pig-iron: a movable shed for protecting the men using a battering-ram.—ns. Sow′back, a low ridge of sand or gravel; Sow′-bread, a genus of plants, allied to the primrose, natives of the south of Europe, the tubers of which are eaten by swine ”

“ It is impossible to agree with the view held by so many persons that the necessity for the same care is non-existent in the selection of a sow as in the choice of a boar. We hold that the desirability for studying the forbears, especially the dam, of a young sow intended for breeding purposes is fully as great as when selecting the young boar, since many, if not most, of the qualities which we desire the brood sow to possess are strongly hereditary. ”

“ THE TEWKESBURY WITCH THAT SUCKED THE SOW.
About the same time a Tewkesbury man had a sow and a litter of pigs: the sow with abundance of milk, but the pigs lean and miserable. He concluded that something which had no right to it came and robbed his piglings of their milk; so he watched; and sure enough a “black four-footed Creature like a Pole-Cat” came and beat away the pigs and sucked the sow; but the farmer got a pitchfork and ran it into the thigh of the pole-cat, which struggled so mightily that, though it was nailed to the ground, it got away and made off. ”

“ The ground swells up from the old-fashioned garden into low hills, carpeted with grass, and shaded by fine old trees and clustering copses, which at last sink down into the rich meadows, through which the Trent winds slowly on. Rather below Ingestre it receives its first important affluent, which bears the prosaic name of the Sow. It is a stream of hardly less magnitude, but of less beauty and interest, which comes down a broad and well-marked valley from Stafford; this, though the chief town of the county, possesses little to interest the traveller ”

“ If the threshers catch him they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on his back, and so on; if the bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who “carried the Pig” gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs; sometimes he gets a large dumpling and a number of small ones, all in pig form, the large one being called the sow and the small ones the sucking-pigs. ”

“ I never was at the crossing of the Sevier river in summer, for seven years after our settlements in Iron county had been established, without experiencing frost; and now the Sevier valley produces luxuriant fields of grain and vegetables in the season thereof, in every place where the water has been taken out from the mouth of that river to the head of it, nearly nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. Who has done this? God and the Saints have done it! ”

“ The trouble if any, which arises from the owner or pig man being in the sty with the farrowing sow almost invariably arises from the absence of a sympathetic feeling between the two. Sows, and indeed wellnigh all animals, pine for sympathy and company, and no animal more so than a pig. Still there are very occasional instances where the young sow becomes very excitable as she commences to farrow even when she and her owner or attendant have previously been on the best of terms. But there the cause is not the presence of a human being, but the arrival of one of her own little pigs. ”

“ Fanny’s time, in this interval, has been largely occupied in contending publicly with wild swine. We have a black sow; we call her Jack Sheppard; impossible to confine her—impossible also for her to be confined! To my sure knowledge she has been in an interesting condition for longer than any other sow in story; else she had long died the death; as soon as she is brought to bed, she shall count her days. I suppose that sow has cost us in days’ labour from thirty to fifty dollars; as many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve hours in chase of her. ”

“ I shall detail the mode by which the land is prepared for sowing, and the process of sowing, in Buckinghamshire, on clover ley, the most troublesome for the purpose:—
Farm-yard manure being spread upon the surface, wheel ploughs drawn by three powerful horses are set to work to plough the land in the usual British way. In wide lands or stitches, after the sod has been turned and laid at an angle of forty-five degrees, the seed is sometimes then sown and harrowed down. ”

“ A magnificent sow. You’ll see, she’ll bring you a litter of pigs next year.”
“I do not see, Ivan Ivanovitch, how you can talk so. What could I do with your sow? Make a funeral dinner for the devil?”
“Again! You can’t get along without the devil! It’s a sin! by Heaven, it’s a sin, Ivan Nikiforovitch!”
“What do you mean, Ivan Ivanovitch, by offering the deuce knows what kind of a sow for my gun?”
“Why is she ‘the deuce knows what,’ Ivan Nikiforovitch?”
“Why? You can judge for yourself perfectly well; here’s the gun, a known thing; but the deuce knows what that sow is like! ”

“ You will be very fortunate if your young sow's first litter numbers ten or a dozen lively youngsters. Six or eight will not be bad if she raises them all, and with care she ought to. Improper care and feeding before the pigs come are usually responsible for any cannibalistic habits developed by the sow. Corn alone is not a good ration except for fattening. Used with wheat, middlings, bran, and ground oats, with plenty of clover or alfalfa hay, corn is all right. The sow should be put into a pen by herself before farrowing time. ”

“ The suckling will squeal and instantly the Sow will spring up and in a fury race madly around the world and back in a moment of time. Sit perfectly still and she won't see either you or Tatosh. Then she'll tell the litter that if one of them squeals again and disturbs her, she will tear it to pieces. With that she'll settle back in the wallow and go to sleep. Then do you pick up the same little suckling on your spit and carry it off. This time it will be afraid to squeal. The Sow will not be disturbed and Tatosh, my horse, will bear you safely away."
Vitazko did exactly as Nedyelka ordered. ”