FACTS FOR FARMERS. HAY MAKING.

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 247, 9 December 1873, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS. HAY MAKING.

The process of making hay consists in evaporating the moisture from the juices of the grass, which, if not driven out of the stems and leaves, would sooner or liter heat in the mow, and thus injure the hay. When apples, pears, peaches, or any other fruit is dried, the object is simply to evaporate the moisture, w Inch would hasten the decay of the fruit. If we spread a small quantity of green grass on a floor beneath a roof that will protect it from rain and dew, the moisture 1 will disappear in n few days, and tht> leaves and stems will be as sweet as gi ass to the taste of tho animal, and it will emit an agreeable fragrance, and no smell of must or dust will be percen ed when the hay is moved. These facti furnish an impoitant clue to the process of making hay. We often hear it said that farmers should make hay while the sun shines, which is a sound precept. But it is quit* as important to understand how to make hay in. cloudy weather ai when the scorching sunbeams are poured upon the meadows liko the heat of a vast furnace. There is quite as much danger of injuring the quality of hay by allowing the grass to be cured too much in the burning tun as there is of baking bread or pies or cakc^ too much. Suppoie, for example, that our domestics were to leave the bread, pies, and cakes in the oven for two or more hours after ever) thing had been thoroughly baked? A loaf or a pie would weigh about the same, after having been heated and dried for several hours after the baking is finished, as such things would weigh when baked just enough to taste the best. But who likes doublebaked, scorched, and dried-up bread ? Now, then, if grass be allowed to lie for hours, and in many instances for two or three days, exposed to the hot sun, the hay will appear quite as unpalatable to domestic amm.ils as scorched and dried up bread does to us. Cattle will eat suoli inferior hay rather than starve. And so people will subsist on scorehcil bread and dried up bread. But do they eat it with a relish? Tho substances in the newlymown grass are in .1 .si mi-fluid and plastic condition. The object in making hrv is to dry these substances just enough to prevent their spoiling in the mow, and at the same time retain a kind of elasticity. When the stems and leaves of grass will break and crumble to atoms the evidence is conclusive that the hay has been sunned too much. When grass is spread out in the burning sun, ns soon as the steins and leaves on the gmiaco have become wilted the tedder and tho fork* should be put in motion, and the newly-mown hay should be tossed about continually until every leaf and item is fit to be raked. By stirring and turning and teddiag other stems and lea\es are brought to the surface, where tliev receive tho benefit of the heat of the Bun. Besides tins, grass will cure m the air much sooner than when lying on the ground. Could machinery bo devised for keeping grass whirling and lhmg about in the air, the hay would be ready for the burn much sooner than if allowed to He until the stems and leaves on the surfnee are as dry as burnt piecrust. When we deposit new wheat, Indian corn, or grain of any kind in the granary, why arc we alw ay* so careful to have every kernel sufficiently dry to prevent heating? When dry apples, ai c packed m a hogshead, why is it essential that every piece should be dry before they are packed? When we gather mint, sage, and elderberries, why ore we always so careful in drying such things, to avoid any spontaneous heat? Simply because spontaneous heat, after the moisture has been expelled, will have a musty taste and a mouldy appearance. "We say, and truthfully too, that by heating sweating in a body such substances are injured in proportion to the degree of heat. But, strange to say, many intelligent farmers will insist that it is a good way to cure gross by putting it into a tight barn, tread it down tight in the mow, and let the redundant moisture be expelled by spontaneous heat. It injures hiiy just as much to heat and sweat in the mow or stalk a« it doe* grain to bea* in the bin. I know this is so, and I enn convince any intelligent person that I am correct, and that the process of heating and sweating is very injurious to the huy. In order to test this opinion let a load of green grat-s be spread around in a barn, say two feet thick, without being pressed down. Occasionally let it bo turned over, until every part is thoroughly dry. Then let this hay bo compared with other mow-burnt, musty, dusty, and mouldy hay that has been allowed to sweat and heat and reek, while being cured, like a steam box, and I will guarantee that the notions about drying and curing hay by sweating will be cherished no longer. — S. E. Todd.

Mr Puller, an authority on agricultural matters, says in rcfereneo to deep and bliallou culture : — '' I advocate deep culture as a principle not locally, in any one county. If any ono don't know better than to bury hu soil where the roots of grain cannot reach it, let him study farming until he knows some of (he first principles. But if I were going to plant trees I would put the soil down where the roots could get at it. J I>plh \e that for grain deep culture is the true principle I know it— l have piuclibetl funning and deep culture, and wo gardeners do it about as thoroughly as anybody , and I ne\er knew a farmer who went contrary to this principle succeed. I think common sense should guide a man. It will not do to take n light, warm soil that had never been stirred more titan three or four inches deep, and bury it at ono plunge under five inches of subsoil that had never seen da\ light. 11 I had manure so 1 could apply it at the rate of 200 two-hor-c loads to the acre, I might do such a thing as that, but, wj have always insisted — we deop ploughers— thnt deep stn ring should always go hand in hand with heavy manuring, and that common sense nuut be our constant guide in tillnge, and our practice must vary with the condition of our sub-oil, with the value of our lands, tlio crops wo raise, and the markets we supply, Still, we insist that it is not lor the supply of plant food only that boils should gcncrull) be deeply stirred, but to better their mechanical condition, to make them moister in dry weather and dryer m wet weather, in clayi to prevent cracking, on side-lulls to prevent w nshing. My conviction is that on nine ploughed acres in ten, 12 inches of mellow soil in room of 6 inches of mellow soil would, for all agricultural uses, double tlio viiluo of that land As fertilizers, sheep aio unrivalled among the domestic) animals. Beneath their " golden hoofs" we lee the field* of Great Britain, after centuries of cultivation, rivalling in productions of w heat, nnd excelling in their yield of grasses the itrhle tirgiu mjilso l other countries. The preponderating, llio undisputed t»-iiniou\ of many of the most suceessiul farnuis oi Great Britain ir, tl.at farming, though now profitable, ivuld not ri'iniim >o, in man\ localities, without sheep Blest as. t\o are with a \irgin m>il of uusurptssed fertility, we

should o-iiNt uith keep in mmcl the fact it 13 not inexhaustible; and the soom r »o give hoed lo this fjet, and leirn to diversify our mdusttv so as to preserve in our soil its original fertility, the better ior Hie most of this generation, and all of the unborn millions that, nfier it, .ire to find homes and a livelihood upon the bosom of our vn-t plains, and alon;; the margins of our beautiful streams. Sheep should be handled, upon every farm, in connection with the raising of grain crops. They oecu; y a place in the economy of the farm which no other animal can fill mj well.