It is always an anxious time for the farmer. The ripening corn may have survived the lack of snow during the winter; it may habe grown despite the scarcity of rain inf the spring and finally developed to maturity in the face of many other obstacles but several days before the reapers begin a sudden, violent windstorm may lay the harvest flat for miles round.
It only needs a steady downpour to complete the damage and wreck the hopes of all, The people never consider the harvest safe until it is actually stored away in the grain sacks that are kept for this purpose, Even after the standing corn has been cut excessive rainfall could ruin a large percentage of the d before winnowing operations were commenced. As it stands, just before the reaping, it is considered the potential wealth of the people, though in the face of the forces of nature they themselves are impotent, The best ground is situated high up on the plateau to the north where numerous small villages are conhected with a network of cartloads; where the wells are sunk to a depth 9f 400 feet to the level of the river bed before they yield water; these
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.