Haymaking

“ The essential point in haymaking is that the hay should be dried sufficiently to ensure the sweating process in the stack reaching no further than the stage of the formation of 109 sugar. Good hay should come out green and with the odour of coumarin—to which is due the scent of new-mown hay. Only part of a stack can ever attain to a perfect state: the tops, bottom and outsides are generally wasted by the weather after stacking, while there may be three or four intermediate qualities present. ”

“ On the higher slopes, we cut it once in July and again in September; while June, August, Michaelmas, and early October are haymaking time for the water-meadows in the bottoms, which yield four crops a year.
So, the summer long, the hay is out on hill or valley, and at night the cattle pull through the narrow roads the primitive hay-wains—two mighty ladders set a tilt on a plank above two wheels. After the wains, the herds come tramping. ”

“ The farmer's son was delicate, and in haymaking time assisted in the work, and I have no doubt, notwithstanding his feeble lungs, in making sweet hay with the maidens. However, he over-exerted himself, broke a blood-vessel, and died. Ever since a blue flame has been seen dancing in this field, and even on the top of the haycocks. ”

“ To this end, she invaded the upper meadow a good many times, during the next few days, took a turn on the hay-rake, now and then helped load and unload, riding down to the barn on a mound of high-piled fragrance, and came 97 to the conclusion that, as an activity, haymaking wasn’t to be compared with knocking a ball back and forth across a net. To try one’s hand at it might do well enough, now and then, to spice an otherwise luxurious life, but as a steady diet the thing was too unrelenting. ”

“ Nor is this mistake in haymaking peculiar to the west coast, but much too common over all the country. Even in Morayshire and about Inverness the hay crop is, as a rule, allowed to ripen over-much. If it were cut ten days or a fortnight earlier it would weigh more, smell sweeter, be more nutritious, and better every way than under the present system, which allows it not merely to ripen, but to more than ripen, to wither up and lose most of its sap and seed before it is cut and secured. It may, perhaps, be laid down as an axiom that root crops cannot be allowed to ripen over-much ”

“ The hungry cattle would graze down all the soft, juicy young buds and leaves, wandering at will over the valleys, under charge only of the herdsman. When haymaking became general the cattle were confined in spring and early summer, and the fields of "mowing grass" appeared, and nourished year by year the plants peculiar to this form of cultivation. The proof that this is so may be seen in the New Forest. There the private fields, carefully protected during the spring, from the tread or bite of cattle, and mown yearly in the summer, have all the wealth of flowers peculiar to our hay-meadows. ”

“ See those youngsters, scarcely able to totter, how they tumble on the sweet, fresh grass; while those who have strength to handle the rake mimic the labors of their parents, and draw tiny loads along the greensward. Meanwhile the hay is thrown [Pg 37] about, and with each returning day comes the same pleasant labor, till the creaking of a wagon, lumbering up the hollow-road from the old farm-house, half way down the hill, gives the signal, which tells that the haymaking season is about to close. ”

“ We have been very busy haymaking since we got home, and a grand stack is in the course of erection nearly opposite the dining-room window. You never saw anything so astonishing as the way the oats, potatoes, etc., have shot up in our absence. Even the puppy, which we left a fluffy ball, seems to have grown inches. Then, all my chickens are hatched, and are an endless pleasure and anxiety. ”

“ I saw nothing on the great Canadian river that equaled the scenery of my first day’s voyage on the Amoor.
Soon after leaving Nicolayevsk we met several loads of hay floating with the current to a market at the town. On the meadows along the river the grass is luxuriant, and hay requires only the labor of cutting and curing. During the day we passed several points where haymaking was in progress. Cutting was performed with an instrument resembling the short scythe used in America for cutting bushes. After it was dried, the hay was brought to the river bank on dray-like carts. ”

“ Hence every thing depends on the hay being carried and housed in good condition; and many an anxious look is cast at passing clouds and distant hill-tops to learn the signs of the weather. The dalesmen are expert in the use of the scythe; and numbers of them, after their own haymaking is over, migrate into Holderness and other grain-growing districts, and mow down the crops, even the wheat-fields, with remarkable celerity. ”

“ The steps of haymaking by hand, in the rich meadow lands of Blackmore, ere machines were brought into the field, were these:—The grass being mown, and lying in swath, it was (1) tedded, spread evenly over the ground; (2) it was turned to dry the under side; (3) it was in the evening raked up into rollers, each roller of the grass of the stretch of one rake, and the rollers were sometimes put up into hay cocks; (4) in the morning the rollers were cast abroad into pa’sels (parcels) or broad lists, with clear ground between each two ”

“ The cows now kept are much too valuable to be treated roughly, being selected from shorthorn strains that yield large quantities of milk. No farmer now would allow any such knocking about. The hay itself is better, because the grass has been improved, and it is also harvested carefully. Rickcloths prevent rain from spoiling the rising rick, mowing machines, haymaking machines, and horse rakes enable a spell of good weather to be taken advantage of, and the hay got in quickly, instead of lying about till the rain returns. ”

“ Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting its clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very heavy, to throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt and dry in the burning sun—all full of good odours—the horse-rake draws it neatly into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll the billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was not this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and John and I pitching on ”

“ It should be remembered that the digestive organs of none other of our farm animals are so easily deranged as those of the horse. Musty, moldy hay is the moving cause of much disease. The man who can not provide a good mow should sell his horses to some farmer who can manage better.
Though blue grass is the best for pasture, timothy is the best for hay. Clover makes better hay than blue grass. Corn fodder has substance, and pound for pound contains about two-thirds as much nutriment as hay. ”

“ Under these circumstances it will not surprise those who care for such matters to hear that our hay crop, about which we were in such anxiety, has been secured in splendid condition, in such condition, indeed, as we can rarely boast of in the West Highlands. Our meadow hay crop, too, is this year unusually heavy, and already, in obedience to the adage which teaches that it is well and wise to make one’s hay while the sun shines, we are all busy getting it cut down and secured, although the old, orthodox season is not yet for a fortnight to come—about old Lammastide. ”

“ How many a lad, half-suffocated by hay in these same hot mows and lofts, has made the resolve then and there never to be a farmer—and kept it!
Is it not a serious mistake to harvest the hay crop on the hurry-and-rush principle? Why not take a little more time for it? It is better to let a load of hay get wet than drive one's self and one's helpers to the brink of sunstroke. It is better to begin a week earlier than try to do two weeks' work in one. A day's work in haying should and can be so planned as to give two hours' nooning in the hottest part of the day. ”

“ Hay makes rapidly in these bundles and a long rain will not penetrate. Haying is the only agricultural pursuit in the country. Each farmer keeps account of the number of pony loads taken to the stacks each season. An average crop for the country is about 1,800,000 pony loads which average one hundred and ninety pounds per pony load. Of this hay 1,000,000 loads are taken from the wild land, that is, from the land outside of the tún. This wild land is the moorland, unfed patches in the pastures, islands, bogs and meadows. The tún is fertilized with the manure from the cow stables. ”

“ Grass cut for hay may be kicked apart in the field early during the wilting process without shattering the leaves. If left too long, then the hay-tedder is a damage because it kicks the leaves loose from the stems and the most valuable feeding material is wasted. But it is a good implement if rightly used. In catchy weather it often means the difference between bright, valuable hay and black, musty stuff, that is hardly fit to feed. ”

“ But we never really raised a melon fit for the table until the old Squire and Addison invented the "haymaker."
To make hay properly we thought we needed two successive days of sun. When rain falls nearly every day haying comes to a standstill, for if the mown grass is left in the field it blackens and rots; if it is drawn to the barn, it turns musty in the mow. Usually the sun does its duty, but once in a while there comes a summer in Maine when there is so much wet weather that it is nearly impossible to harvest the hay crop. ”

“ There is no better food for sheep than well-ripened, sound Timothy hay; though the clovers and nearly all the cultivated grasses may be advantageously fed. Hundreds and thousands of northern flocks receive, during the entire winter, nothing but ordinary hay, consisting mainly of Timothy, some red and white clover, and frequently a sprinkling of gum, or spear grass. Bean and pea straw are valuable, especially the former, which, if properly cured, they prefer to the best hay; and it is well adapted to the production of wool. ”

“ But you won't be able to take this great big haystack with you into the life eternal, said Jon. The time is coming when you will have to part with it. Then it will be used as the needs require. And what good will it do you? What are you going to do with it?
I am going to keep it, answered Brandur. I intend to keep it right here on the knoll, keep it in case the haying should be poor next summer. There may be a poor growth of grass and a small hay crop; there may be a volcanic eruption and the ashes may poison the grass, as they have done in former years. ”

“ Desperate attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen ”

“ The first year you will have all clover hay, and it must be cut before the second blossom comes; if not cut early enough, the stalks become tough and woody, and are wasted by the cow. The second year, if top-dressed in the fall with the manure collected during the summer, you will have a fine crop of timothy, and if the land was good for anything you can cut hay from it for three years by giving it a little manure every fall. As early as the ground will admit, sow some peas and oats; one bushel of each will plant one-third of an acre. ”

“ The consumption of hay will, it is true, depend much upon the weather; the keener the cold, the more the sheep will eat. In the South, much depends upon the amount of grass obtained. In many places, a light, daily [144] foddering supplies; in others, a light foddering placed in the depository racks once in two days, answers the purpose. In the steady cold weather of the North, the shepherd readily learns to determine about how much hay will be consumed before the next foddering time. ”

“ The term "wild and woolly West" is said to have originated from the "prairie wool," or natural hay, which is specially luxuriant on dried-up sloughs. It is a grass with a fluffy, golden-brown plume. But this natural hay can only be cut every other year, hence many farmers are sowing hay seeds as well. The wagon which they use for carting hay and wheat has enormously high rack-like sides. On this farm, when carting hay, an immense canvas sheet with rings at the corners is put in the wagon and the hay piled up on it. ”

“ Instead of shaking out the swaths slowly with a fork, with a single horse hitched to a hay tedder about two acres an hour can be shaken up and left in such shape that both sun and wind have perfect access to it and cause it to cure rapidly.
Instead of raking the hay laboriously by hand, a steel sulky rake does the work easily and quickly, doing more in an hour than was possible in a day with the hand rake. On farms where the acreage of hay is large, a self-loader attached to the rear of the wagon gathers the hay from the windrow and delivers it on the wagon. ”

“ The increase in the acreage of hay has been especially rapid since 1880, the area devoted to it having doubled between 1880 and 1900, the greatest part of this gain being made in the earlier of the two decades, corresponding to the period in which there was a decadence in wheat culture. The prairie region was easily adaptable to the raising of this crop. Moreover, the increased attention given to cattle and horses, and the need of putting the soil under grass to improve its productivity in the older States, have tended to develop this crop. ”