Rape Threshing

Hand-colored aquatint showing a large group of field workers engaged in rape threshing, vivaciously swinging flails and winnowing, as a fresh load of rape is being brought in. The author comments on this scene as follows:

... It is usual to have [rape] threshed upon the open field in which it is grown. Large sheets are spread for this purpose, and, as the operation must necessarily be completed with all possible dispatch, some hundreds of people are frequently employed, who are bountifully supplied at short intervals with meat and drink. Some are reapers, some carriers, or, as they are termed in Yorkshire, huggers, and some threshers; while the rest are variously employed in forking, sifting, and, lastly, putting the seed into sacks. The threshing is performed by a number of men, two abreast, who move in a large circle. The two leaders, gaily dressed out with coloured ribbands in their hats by way of distinction, move backwards; the next two face them; and so on alternately the whole party. Two women near the fore ground are seen running away from a huge load of rape, which the waggish huggers are conspiring to bury them under. This is one of the long established jokes upon these riotously merry occasions.