Stook

thumb|Wheat sheaves near King's Somborne, England arranged into a stook. thumb|Stooking maize in Kenya. A stook /stʊk/, shock, Aisle (North Somerset), Kiver (Cheshire/Staffordshire)(pronounced Kivver), or stack, (although the word stack more usually refers to larger amounts of cereal crops or hay stored in a barn or stackyard) is an arrangement by which bound sheaves of cut grain-stalks, complete with the grain, are placed with their butts on the ground, leaning together so as to keep the grain-heads off the ground during the period when left in the field. This is after the crop has been cut with a reaper binder and before collection from the field to the barn or for threshing. Before reaper binders came into use around 1900, the cereal crop would have been cut by scythe or with a finger-bar mowing machine, and the stalks gathered into sheaves by hand and tied with a straw binding called a bont. Stooked grain sheaves are typically wheat, barley, rye and oats. In the era before combine harvesters and powered grain driers, stooking was necessary so as to further ripen, dry and harden the grain. The stooks remained in the field for a period of time. Agricultural folklore suggested that the stook needed to hear three church bells; that is for at least fifteen days, to achieve a moisture level low enough for safe storage. If weather conditions dictated, two sheaves from each stook were removed and replaced, butt end up, with the stems spread to cover and protect the heads of the sheaves below. This was called hooding. Stooks were usually tipped over, butts to the sun and wind, a few hours drying before being loaded on the wagons for transport to the stack. In the 21st century, most grain is cut and harvested with combine harvesters, with the grain taken straight to the store and the straw baled. However, stooking remains useful to smallholders who grow their own grain, or at least some of it, as opposed to buying it.

==Overview== The purpose of a stook [or 'stooking'] is to dry the unthreshed grain while protecting it from vermin until it is brought into long-term storage. The unthreshed grain also cures while in a stook. In England, sheaves were commonly stacked in stooks of six or eight.