Meadows and Haymaking 



37 



cause the grass will cut, all the easier with a 

 little dew wetting it, — as soon as cut, the 

 swathes should be shaken out with the fork, 

 and laid evenly and thinly out in the field. 

 This should not be done, as it is unfortunately 

 often done, carelessly, but, on the contrary, 

 with great care, so that the heaps or lumps 

 will be thoroughly disentangled, the object 

 being to have all the mass thoroughly 

 loosened, and each stalk independent of its 

 neighbour. This is the " standard of effi- 

 ciency" — a standard difficult to be attained, 

 it must be confessed, but which should never- 

 theless be aimed at. If hands enough can 

 be obtained, the turning over and spreading 

 out of the grass should be done a second and 

 even a third time before the dinner hour. 

 I'he next operation is to rake the spread-out 

 grass into rows, which is called " wind-row- 

 ing," and which is done in such a way 

 that the rows lie on the field parallel 

 to one another, and distinct from each 

 other, say 3 or 4 feet. A good deal of tact 

 is required in arranging the workers so that 

 they wind-row regularly and without interfer- 

 ing with each other's work, and also with the 

 work of the last operation of the day, which is 

 putting the grass into small " cocks " or 

 heaps ; this being done by dividing the 

 wind-rows into portions, and raking the grass 

 in each portion into small heaps. In this, 

 again, a good deal of time is either lost or 

 gained, according as the workers operate, 

 and interfere or not interfere with each other. 

 If the weather is thoroughly settled, and the 

 farmer thinks so, and cares to run the risk, 

 the operation of "'cocking" may be dispens- 

 ed with on the evening of the first day, and 

 the grass left in the wind-rows. The first 

 operation in the morning of the second day 

 — supposing the grass was cocked the 

 evening previous — is to shake out the 

 grass of the "cocks," and spread it out evenly 

 on the field. This, however, should not be 

 done too early in the morning — not before 

 the dew is pretty well off the ground, which 

 will rarely be much before nine o'clock. After 

 a certain period of exposure, the hay is 

 "single wind-rowed," then "double wind- 

 rowed" — that is, two workers, or rows of 



workers, work opposite each other, and with 

 two single wind-rows between them, each 

 raking towards himself, and thus bringing two 

 single wind-rows into a double one. The last 

 operation of the day is to rake the double 

 wind-rows into "cocks," these being larger 

 than the cocks of the first day. These are all 

 opened out next morning and spread evenly 

 upon the ground, and turned over or 

 tedded as often as possible. Wind-rowing 

 and double wind-rowing are then gone 

 through ; and last, the whole is divided, and 

 made up into great cocks preparatory to 

 being carted off and made up into stack, or 

 housed. Of course this rapid making pre- 

 supposes the best possible condition of 

 weather. Much will depend upon the weather, 

 and modifications will necessarily have to 

 be made. The best weather for haymaking 

 is that in which a clear cloudless sky and a 

 slight or briskish breeze are met with. With 

 weather of this kind grudge no outlay in the 

 employment of numerous hands, and let the 

 grass be under continual movement ; and 

 see the work so arranged that all the workers 

 keep pace with each other, and all work in 

 unison, so that the making goes regularly on 

 without interruption. In such weather, and 

 with such management, the hay crop may be 

 housed or stacked by the end of the third 

 day, certainly by the middle of the fourth. 

 In bad unsettled weather the process of 

 haymaking is much more tedious than that 

 above described, and it tries in many ways 

 the patience of the farmer. 



Haymaking has been vastly facilitated by 

 the introduction of machines for mowing, 

 tedding, and raking. The tedding machines, 

 however, are not so applicable to clover hay, 

 which, as stated above, requires to be carefully 

 turned over, and handled in all the processes 

 so as to prevent, as far as possible, the fine 

 leaves of the clover from being lost, which 

 would inevitably be the case, were the grass 

 roughly handled. In the case of hay made 

 from natural grasses, the tedding machines 

 are employed with manifest advantage, 

 and when these are followed by the hay 

 rake, which gathers the hay into " wind- 

 rows," manual labour in haymaking, is 



