Bind it wet, and it tightens as it dries

We bind brooms in a shed off Church Street in Prince Albert, the same way the trade has been done in this district since the farms up the valley still grew their own broom-corn. The sorghum comes in from Leeu-Gamka in February, cut green and hung in the roof to dry through autumn. The palmiet for the yard besoms is cut on the Dorps River under permit, four bundles at a time and never more than that. Everything is bound wet on a foot-treadle winder with galvanised wire, so the wire pulls in as the grass gives up its water and the head sets hard around the handle. A stapled broom splays inside a season. Ours are stitched flat through the head afterwards, which is another twenty minutes a broom and the whole reason the sweep stays even. There are two of us and we get through about forty a month.