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Updated: May 26, 2025
True reaping is done with a hook alone and the hand; all the present reaping is 'vagging, with a hook in one hand and a bent stick in the other, and instead of drawing the hook towards him and cutting it, the reaper chops at the straw as he might at an enemy.
A hazel bough with a good crook is then sought by the men that are thinking of the wheat harvest: they trim it for a 'vagging' stick, with which to pull the straw towards them. True reaping is now never seen: 'vagging' makes the short stubble that forces the partridges into the turnips. Maple boughs, whose bark is so strongly ribbed, are also good for 'vagging' sticks.
With it the reaper cut off the ears of the wheat only, leaving the tall straw standing, much as if it had been a pruning-knife. It is the oldest of old implements very likely it was made of a chip of flint at first, and then of bronze, and then of steel, and now at Sheffield or Birmingham in its enlarged form of the 'vagging' hook.
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