184 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



ing, and wlien the dew is oif spread it well. I like to dry it in 

 one day's sun if I possibly can ; if not, put it into coeks before 

 niglit, then get it into the barn as green as I can and not have 

 it hurt. I do not want my hay all dried up. It injures it. 

 Wet meadow I put into the barn on the day it is cut, if tlio 

 weather is suitable for curing it." 



A farmer of Berkshire county says : " If the weather is good 

 and the grass not too heavy, we cut in the forenoon and get into 

 the barn in the afternoon. If the grass is heavy and the weather 

 not good, cut in the forenoon and turn over the swaths at night, 

 spread and get in the next day. I do not believe in drying hay 

 as much as some do. If not quite dry, two or three quarts of 

 salt to the load will preserve it, and it will be the better." 

 Another in the same county says : " I prefer to cut liay in the 

 blossom on a good hay day in the forenoon, and it is lit for the 

 barn, if raked with the horserake and care is used to turn it 

 over and bring the green grass to the sun, by two or three 

 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day. Much hay is spoiled 

 by being dried too much." 



A farmer of Franklin county says : " Timothy will dry suf- 

 ficient for me in one good hay day. I dry less and less every 

 year. If there is no moisture on it there is little danger of 

 hurting after it is wilted." He cuts his swale hay before it 

 matures and while it is quite green, and lets his upland grasses 

 stand till they are fully developed and commence changing their 

 deep green color. " I think it will keep the same stock longer 

 and better if cut at that age." Another experienced farmer of 

 Berk>hire county says : " My way of making hay is to cut wlien 

 in blossom, in the morning, shake it out evenly over the ground, 

 turn it over at eleven o'clock, and get it into the barn on the 

 same day if the weather is good. But if the grass is very 

 heavy, I put it into cocks over night. I consider it made 

 as soon as dry enough not to heat in the mow. To get drier 

 than this is an injury to the hay." 



One of the most extensive and experienced stock feeders in 

 this State, a practical farmer, says : " I prefer to cut all English 

 or swale grass from the tenth of June to the first of July, 

 including Timothy and clover in the €;ame time. More tlian 

 thirty years experience has convinced me that hay secured in 

 the above time, — or just before coming into blossom, — will 



