HAY MAKING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 767, 12 November 1886, Page 15

HAY MAKING.

Writing upon the best way of dealing with hay making, ‘ Komata,’ in the New Zealand Farmer, says : The hay crop is an important one, and if properly harvested and carried through, is generally the mo3t profitable on the farm, but unfortunately, the harvesting of it is not only attended with a great deal of risk of loss and damage from the weather and other causes over which the agriculturist has no control, but there is very often a want of skill displayed, and far oftener a great want of care and forethought throughout the whole business. There was once an old farmer who was an inveterate grumbler, and one season, when the weather bad been so fine that it was impossible under ordinary circumstances to miss making good hay, be was congratulated on the circumstance by a friend. ‘You cannot have anything to find fault with this season, Mr surely ?’ • Wall,’ replied the old man, ‘I don’t know about that—where be the cow hay ?’ * cow hay’ being generally understood to mean partly spoiled hay, and it may be on this principle that eo many farmers act in neglecting ordinary precautions. Perhaps they want an excuse to give the cows damaged hay. A great many farmers say they cannot afford all sorts of expenses in the way of sheets, ropes, cart covers and other contrivances, and the price of labor in building stands, &c., and that . the hay must be ‘ chopped down ’ and hurried into the stack quickly and ‘chance the weather.’ A little quiet reflection will con vince any thinking man how very foolish such on idea is, particularly in such a very uncer. tain climate as this. Of course everybody knows that farming in New Zealand at the present time ia not exactly a near cut to unbounded wealth, however close it may be to it, and that it unfortunately happens that farmers do not find it easy to buy right and left every little thing they want; but still for all that it is a fearful risk to begin cutting without proper sheets and provisions of all kinds. The writer of this paper fir.-t assisted in putting up a hay stack in the year 1835, and owned his own first stack in the year 1850, and can assure you that in all these years he has seen something of the losses in hay. You may do very well one year on the happy-go-lucky system, and it may happen that such rare luck may occur now and then in good seasons, but the average loss of three or four successive years will cost more, as many times over, as the expense of doing things properly, and there will come a yr ar now and again when the entire lot will be lost, even the •* cow hay.’ Now let ns look at the probable causes of loss, and then see how we shall avoid them. In the first place a common cause of loss is from beginning before you are ready, or perhaps more correctly speaking, from not being ready soon enough to begin. When the grass is fit, and the weather gives you a chance, always be sure to have your sheets, cart covers, liay frames and forks, &c., ready before the time, and see that the mowing machine and the rake are in perfect order. If you leave sorting up the two last till harvest time you will find the blacksmith very busy ■with such things, and he will not only keep vou waiting, but likely hurry over the work and slum it, and it is a poor plan to be losing valuable time making hay frames and sewing sheets when you ought to be hurrying in the hay Have all these matters attended to early, and the site of your stacks duly discussed and settled in advance, and do not be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of different arrangements with a dezen men at harvest wages standing lookmg on, as I have too often seen done. A great mistake is often made in allowing your grass and clover to stand too lohg before cutting. This is a serious fault. Sometimes of course the weather is to blame, but it is a misfortune, because not not only is the hay very inferior but the field is injured very much. Tt is far better to be a little too soon than a little too late, 33y being early you do not lose so much as one would think in weight, as the younger grass and clover weigh heavier in proportion to tbeir bulk than old stuff, and oven if you do lose a little it is amply made up in the quality, where for the market or home use, and the * after math ’ is so very much more valuable. Then, again, by letting it stand too long, supposing wet weather comes on, it may bo bll laid down and half ruined before you get

another chance to save it. Never risk that. The second chance of loss is in the rain. This, of course, you cannot altogether avoid but you can very greatly lessen the risk. Always have, what not one farmer in twenty does have, that is, a really good barometer in the house. Farmers, like sailors, pass most of their time in the open air, and their dependence upon the weather causes them to become c'ose observers and good judges of it, but, un like the latter, farmers trust emirely to their own observations, and consequently often meet with heavy losses, which a glass would have saved them, as I have often known it to do. Never think of entering upon hay making without a thoroughly good and sufficiently large stack sheet and some cart covers. It may be expensive, but to undertake a hay harvest without it is nothing hut gambling, with heavy odds against you. Whatever you do be sure to have vour stack secure. What lny is in the field can be turned after rain, and although damaged, may yet be saved, but if that which is in the stack once gets wet it becomes a hopeless business. It has to be pulled down and carted and spread all over the field again very often only to be ultimately quite spoiled, after costing more than it is worth. Whatever blunders you make, make none with the stack. Once it is in that, let it be safe from the possibility of getting wet. The next loss is from what is built in the field cocks, ami the way to guard against this is to take care that they are properly built. If you begin with the middle, shake out the forkful as you put it on, and always keep the centre well up. Then rake the cock lightly all round to make the grass slope outwards and downwards. It will stand a good deal of pretty heavy rain without hurting. I would rather run a few days’ risk in well-made hay-cocks, by their being put up fully green, than incur the next probable loss from rain whilst the grass lies cut. This is the least easily avoided. If grass is cut it will stand a goad shower or two without much harm, provided it has not been turned, but once turned the shower will considerably injure it, and if lying in windrows when rain comes on, the injury and the expense are still greater. Very often where a great breadth is in windrows, and rain comes on, the hands you have are not sufficient to turn and dry it soon enough to save a great loss in quality and weight; and as for the practice of drawing several rakefuls into a kind of‘heap’ ready for carting and particularly a large extent of it, there could not possibly be a more foolish plan. Always build into small cocks as you go along. Never mind if it costs a little more. Let it have a preliminary * sweat ’ there before it goes inlo the big stack. Carting out of windrows and heaps may perhaps in some cases, where all goes well, save a small sum, but it is a very great risk of incurring many times the cost and of losing the hay, and in any case the hay cannot be so well saved. Either it will be too dry and lose weight or it will be over-heated in the stack. The only way to shun the weather risk, when the grass is down, is not to have too much down at a time, to watch the weather and knock off cutting, and cock up as soon as possible, even if the hay is green, in small untramped cocks of say eight to the ton ; these precautions, together with cart covers (if you cart the hay) in case showers come on when the carts are loaded, will greatly reduce the weather risks.

Besides risks from rain there are others. The hay may heat in the stacks, or even catch fire from spontaneous combustion ; or it may cut out, as I have very often known it, quite mouldy and full of white dust. In all the hundreds of stacks I have had to do with I never yet knew one that was injuied in these ways purely from the hay being put up too green. It wa3 either from its having been wet (with water) in the field and not perfectly dried, from being covered too closely, with a heavy sheet in the stack too long, particularly during rain, or from there being no chimney when the stuff was green ; but I am inclined to think that even in these oases the fault lay chiefly in bad work in the field, in the turning and cock building. One very often sees a person turning band-mown hay with the handle of the fork, using it as one would a plough to turn over the swath in a lump. This is a great mistake. Hay should be shaken out as it is turned, to lighten it up, and let the warm air git at it as much as possible without the sun bleaching it. For the same reasons hay should be put into cocks green before it is bleached and all the sap dried out of it, and it should be shaken loose when being built. Agara, when it is forked on to the stack the builder and his assistants should shake loose the forkfuls as they build them. Too often we see hard ‘flakes ’ of hay put into the cocks that have never been broken loose in the making, and again forked up on the stack and lumped down just as they stick together, and you can never make good hay in that way. You lose ten minutes, nay, much more money, in the price than you save in the wages. For these reasons all those new fangled contrivances of hoisting up whole loads of hay with a (net off a cart are bad. They don’t save half so much wages as people think, and they are against good stack building. Even where the hay is already too dry and where it is not as green as it ought to be, they are apt to spoil it. The man who pitches the hay out of the'cart, and those above who spread it, fork at a time, are actually haymak. ing as well as building, and their time is very usefully employed. 1 would never recommend carting out of windrows unless it may be an odd few loads, under peculiar circumstances that might arise, hut always to build cooks ; whether to load these cocks into carts or to draw them in as they stand with horses, is a matter that depends on circumstances. Generally speaking it does not make a great deal of difference in either the expense or, what is of more consequence still, the risk ; perhaps the best plan is to do a little of each. When the 6tack is low one man can pitch the cocks on the stack, and a couple of boys with single horses can run in the cocks at a trot, but as the stack gets higher you require a stage and a second pitcher. Then, again, if you have a gool cart-cover the hay is safe in catching weather as soon as it ia in the cart, and the extra shifting in pitching it there improves the creen hay.. Again the bottoms of the cocks are apt to be damp and are benefited by being tossed the extra timo, and placed on the outside of the frame of the cart. Certainly cocks should never be drawn if the distance to tak6 them is much, and above all

things do not draw them on , or even across a dusty road, or you will injure the hay very much. I may here observe, although it may not be apropos of ‘grass hay, that yoa should never draw in oaten hay on any account iu the cock. W ith grass hay there is a good green sole to cover the earth, but as the oats are on a ground of loose ploughed land the dust is all the way, and spoils the hay. I have seen horrible messes made in this way by clever people, who wsre far aboye being told anything, and seen the chaff cut from it too. Even where carts are to be used, if the stack is in the grass field it is a very good plan (o have a boy with a horse to run in a few cocks, if it is only to avoid keepthe stack hands idle on an occasion waiting for a belated cart, nnd to bring in the cocks close by for the bottom of the stack when the field hands were doing some shaking, cocking, or other work. You will find it often the means of saving a great deal of subsequent trouble to have two poles at each side of the stack lightly leaning against it, at first short ones, and afterwards longer ones, and just to keep an eye occasionally on the stack, as sometimes they will go over a little in spite of every care and skill, and if not checked will get worse, and you have no time to go looking up props when you are in full work; but if you find the weight going on to either pair of poles you can just tighten them up a little, and the stack, as it sinks, will recover its ba’ance. If the bay should be green (and that should always be so) the chimney is easily made by placing a line of 4in tiles across the site of the stack, so as to admit a current of air passing through from one side to the other. Then you stand a pipe made of four 9 x lin board nailed together in a square (about 5 or 6ft long) upon the centre of the line of tiles, aod draw it up with you as the staok rises, which will leave a hollow all the way, up which the heated air will escape. Never on any account omit to keep the centre of your stack high up. You can hardly overdo it. Not one stack builder, even amongst good ones, out of a hundred keeps his centre high enough. This practice applies most to the roof, but it ought to begin at the very bottom of the stuck. The layers of hay should all slope very much outwards, and so far from this causing the building to slip it ha 3 the very reverse effect. I cannot impress this point too strongly on both new and old stackbuilders. The neglect of it is the most fruitful cause of loss hy rain after building, and no amount of thatch, were it a foot deep," will obviate the evil; and it saves so much labor in other respect?, both in getting out cut trusses and in the thatching. If you build a hollow stack it is not only making a water-butt, but, put as long and as ugly a head on it as you like, and by and by the centre sinks, and down comes your high roof, flat and flaky, with all your yards of useless thatching ; but if you keep your middle very high, nnd hard tramped, then yon can make the roof as short as vou like, and it will stand nearly at that, take half the thatch, look evereo much better, and keep the rain out; but do not you think that you are going to build hollow and carelessly, saving your weary legs from hard tramping all the way up, and then turn virtuous and go for a high middle farther up. That will not do any more than leading a bad life, and turning good when you grow old. Never put off the thatching longer than possible. If vou are building many stacks let a hand be thatching one when another i’b building. Have all the thatch ready before yoa begin the harvest. You should never at any time, more particularly iu harvest time, trust the weather a single hour, and never on any account lose so much as a minute, for you can never tell what difference eren a few minutes may (and often do) make to you before you are through. For this reason, even if you nay extra, let the men do anything but idle. One more little hiut before we have done. Let there be always one thoroughly competent man in command of the harvest field, and let him overlook and plan everj arrangement, however few men there may be, so that there maybe no ‘hitches’ and consequent loss of time, and above all things, no disputes or arguments as to what ia and what is not to be done. Men at. harvest time know their value and their privileges, and if not prevented wou'd much rather argue and * yarn ’ than work in a hot tun, and your manager ought to be a man with whom such things are quite unnecessary, to say the least of it. When I urge haymakers on the one ban not to spare necessary pains and labor to procure a proper sample of good hay, and also t avoid weal her risk, it is also right to point out another risk from delay—delay that may take you from fine into bad weather. It is of course most desirable to get the hay harvest over as soon as possible. Now these two cautions are to a great extent conflicting, and it is here that a great deal of judgment is reiuired. If only one could be sure of plenty of fine weather one could go on and prosper in this respect, but unfortunately rain may come on any hour in this country, and it is not easy for even the most experienced to tell the signs of the weather. I would therefore strongly advise you to to take every possible care as’far as money expenses go, bub whilst you neglect no precaution as far as time expense is concerned. I would save that part of it very carefully. How often wo hear farmers say, ‘ How provoking the rain is. If the weather had only kept up another day (or even an hour or two) we would have had it all secure ;’ end how often could this have been the case if only certain bungling or certain ■earning, or certain fumbling over a broken shaft, or a ricketty frame, or some such little matter bad been avoided, or as often happens, the men had nob flfc off work so early. Give the men a good cup of tea and a little feed at five o’clock to refresh them after a hard day’s work, and extra pay per hour for the evening, and let them pitch into the work like * giants refreshed ’ till it is too dark to see, and you will not only please them, but very likely save a great many times their extra wages. A litt’e good lunch and a little money spent in good tea nnd coffee, is not any loss in harvest time so long as you have good men who are willing to do good work and hurry up; but as for beer and spirit? money spent on them, this iworse than thrown away. They may he good or bad things ia themselves ; I do not wish here to enter into that question, but as far as haymaking goes they are the worst possible drinks that can he brought into the field. Under such influence men may put on a spurt fora little while, but I will defy them to keep it up, and whatever quantity they have

more is always wanted, and more, and more after that. Bather give them twice as much in money or anything else ; moreover, you will find those men who most insist upon 6uch things are invariably the worst hands, and the least desirable on many accounts to retain. Let them depart in peace aud get othnrs. The caution of a provident haymaker might, I think, be summed up thus :—‘Let money save time.' Have always three carts, one getting loaded, one getting unloaded, and one on the road ; and, as was remarked before, a boy with a horse in ploagh haraesa to draw in a cock or two to fill up gaps.’ If you are lucky enough to require none of the sheets, etc , you have provided, so much the better. You money is not wasted. The saving iu time and quality of bay will pay for them, and jou can take care of them for next vear’a U3e. If an extra hand or an extra horse does not find full work and so a little wages is wasted, that is of less consequence than losing tons of hay from being short-handed. When you come to the roof of your stack do not fall into the error of taking in too quick at first and then going up steeper afterwards. Such roofs will leak, thatch them how you will. Go in very slowly at first and as you get higher up draw in more quickly. I have heard the shape of a well built roof described as that of a ‘ cow’s back,’ and the idea is not very far from the mark, provided we say a very lean cow. Such a roof, trampled hard and well filled, is far better than a lofty one slack built to fall in. The funnel you nse to make your chimney should be furnished with stops so as to prevent it from slipping do vn again when you draw it up, and you should be particularly careful to keep it well up in sight, as I have seen very serious accidents happen from persons on the staek stepping into it in the hurry of heading up. On one occasion one of the men was most painfully and permanently injured in this way, bad had a previous warning by a slighter accident. I would never build a stack for mere show, running out very much to the brim and also at the ends, and little off the perpendicular is all very well not only for appearance but to beep the wet out, but you will find it inconvenient in cutting trusses, and there is no advantage in overdoing it. As for the roof, whatever water falls on the centre has to run down the sides as well as what falls on the sides themselves, and therefore the lower portions of the roof have most water passing over- them, and that is the reason why they should be „the steepest. Tnere should also be a little projection oreave so as tosecurs the water dropping off the roof falling clear of the sides of the stack, and there should be an open drain round the stack for this water to drop into with a run for it to beep the foundations dry. And plenty of rough Btuff, fern and something of that kind, for the stack to stand on, bnt never use uny old fusty stuff or any sort for a foundation as it is sure to taste the hay for a long way up the stack. Next month we will go into soma little matters connected with the thatching, etc., but just now it is sufficient to say that as no time ought to be lost in this operation the thatch ought to be got ready for use as soon as possible, and if in particular rushes are to be used care should be taken to cover them well up and keep them as wet and green as possible. KIND TREATMENT OP THE HORSEThe editor of the New England Farmer tells of a horse that was owned by a shiftless, lazy farmer for many years, and which from colthood up always looked like an old-time horse. It was thin in flesh, rough of coat and poor in spirit. It had a lazy gait that was recognised by all the neighbors as it passed. Neither the continual jerking of the reins or the repeated touch of the driver’s whip would make any lasting impression on the rate of speed. After getting along into his ‘ teens the owner concluded he must sell or swap him off for what he would bring and buy him a new and young horse The animal went for a low price of course, hut he fell into the hands of a different Rort of man, one who fed well and took good care of all of his animals. In six months the former owner did not know his horse when it was driven by. It was nearly 200 pounds heavier, its coat was smooth and glossy, its head was up, eyes bright, and in general appearance the animal was the picture of vigor and good health. He had dropped his old gait and travelled like a horse that is proud of his blood and breed ing.

The flavor of pork depends on the last month’s feeding of the pig. Resources of the soil do not end abruptly at four or five inches in depth, yet there are hundreds of farms where all beneath is terra incognita because no effort haß ever been made to explore. Some eggß invariably hatch a little sooner than others. Remove the young chicks at once and keep them from the hen until all are hatched. If you do not, the hen will be likely to quit the nest with the first comers, leaving the unhatched chicks to chill and die. One of the best, well trfld, and always successful preventives of diseuse among swine, is to keep a trough, to which they can always have access, filled with a mixture composed of 60 parts of wood ashes, 26 parts salt, 12 parts sulphur, and 8 parts copperas. The pigs will regulate their doees. Prof. Turner of Jacksonville, 111-, has been successful with this preventive, as originally composed by him.