All the other labour-services are performed more or less on the same system as the ploughings, with the fundamental difference that the number of men engaged in them has to be reckoned with more than the number of beasts. The extents are especially full of details in their descriptions of reaping or mowing corn and grass; the process of thrashing is also mentioned, though more rarely. In the case of meadows (_mederipe_) sometimes their dimensions are made the basis of calculation, sometimes the number of work-days which have to be employed in order to cut the grass[594]. As to the corn-harvest, every holding has its number of acres assigned to it[595], or else it is enacted that every house has to send so many workmen during a certain number of days[596]. If it is said that such and such a tenant is bound to work on the lord's field at harvest-time with twenty-eight men, it does not mean that he has to send out such a number every time, but that he has to furnish an amount of work equivalent to that performed by twenty-eight grown-up labourers in one day; it may be divided into fourteen days' work of two labourers, or into seven days' of four, and so forth. Harvest-time is the most pressing time in the year for rural work; it is especially important not to lose the opportunity presented by fine weather to mow and garner in the crop before rain, and there may be only a few days of such weather at command. For this reason extra labour is chiefly required during this season, and the village people are frequently asked to give extra help in connexion with it. The system of _precariae_ is even more developed on these occasions than in the case of ploughing[597]. All the forces of the village are strained to go through the task; all the houses which open on the street send their labourers[598], and in most cases the entire population has to join in the work, with the exception of the housewives and perhaps of the marriageable daughters[599]. The landlord treats the harvesters to food in order to make these exertions somewhat more palatable to them[600]. These 'love-meals' are graduated according to a set system. If the men are called out only once, they get their food and no drink: these are 'dry requests.' If they are made to go a second time, ale is served to them (_precariae cerevisiae_). The mutual obligations of lords and tenantry are settled very minutely[601]; the latter may have to mow a particular acre with the object of saying 'thanks' for some concession on the part of the lord[602]. The same kind of 'requests' are in use for mowing the meadows. The duties of the peasants differ a great deal according to size of their holdings and their social position. The greater number have of course to work with scythe and sickle, but the more wealthy are called upon to supervise the rest, to ride about with rods in their hands[603]. On the other hand, a poor woman holds a messuage, and need do no more than carry water to the mowers[604].