The method of thatching with reed, (which is one of the best and most difficult specimens of the thatcher’s art,) has been thus described. No laths being made use of as a support to the thatch, a few of the longest and stoutest reeds are scattered irregularly across the naked spars as a foundation whereon to lay the main coat; and thus a partial gauze-like covering is formed, called the _fleaking_. On this fleaking the main covering is laid, and fastened down to the spars by means of long rods called _sways_, laid across the middle of the reed, and tied to the spars with rope-yarn or with brambles. In laying on the reed, the workman begins at the lower corner of the roof on his right hand, and keeps an irregular diagonal line until he reaches the upper corner on his left; a narrow eaves-board being nailed across the feet of the spars, and some fleaking scattered on. The thatcher begins to “set his eaves” by laying a coat of reed, eight or ten inches thick, with the heads resting upon the fleaking and the butts upon the eaves-board. He then lays on his sway, or rod, about six or eight inches from the lowest point of the reed, whilst his assistant, on the inside, runs a needle threaded with rope-yarn close to the spar and to the upper edge of the eaves-board. The thatcher draws it through on one side of the sway and enters it again on the contrary side both of the sway and of the spar. The assistant, in his turn, draws it through, unthreads it, and, with the two ends of the yarn, makes a knot round the spar, thereby drawing both the sway and the reed tight down to the roof; whilst the thatcher above, beating and pressing the sway, assists in consolidating the work. The assistant, having made good the knot below, proceeds with another length of thread to the next spar, and so on till the sway is bound down the whole length, that is, about eight or ten feet. This being done, another stratum of reed is laid upon the first, so as to make the entire coat eighteen or twenty inches thick at the butts; and another sway is laid on and bound down about twelve inches above the first. When the eaves are completely set they are adjusted and made even by an instrument called a _legget_. This is made of a board eight or nine inches square, with a handle two feet long adjusted to its upper surface in an oblique position. The face of the legget is set with large-headed nails, and these enable the workman, by using the instrument somewhat as if it were a turf-beating tool, to lay hold of the butts of the reed and to adjust them in their places. When the eaves are thus shaped, the thatcher lays on another stratum of reeds, and binds it down by another sway somewhat shorter than the last, and placed eighteen or twenty inches above it; and above this, others, in successive rows, continuing to shorten the sways until they diminish to nothing, and a triangular corner of thatching be formed. After this the remaining surface of the roof is similarly done.