248 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



more compact, it may save him the necessity of building larger barns to make room for his 

 crop, or stacking in the field, which latter would injure the quality of the hay more or less, 

 however well it might be stacked. 



The quality of the hay is also improved by baling, or rather by this means much of the 

 aroma and consequent nutritive element of the hay is preserved which would otherwise be lost 

 by contact with the air. By this process the bales are in a great measure rendered almost 

 air-tight, except, of course, the external portions; besides, whenever hay is to be sent to a 

 distant market, baling becomes a necessity to fit it for transportation. 



The accompanying illustrations represent baling presses, manufactured by P. K. Ded- 

 erick & Co., Albany, N. Y. The first may be used with a one or two-horse power, requiring 

 one man to pitch 

 in the hay and an 

 other to tie the 

 bales and assist the 

 machine in storing 

 them. This press 

 also makes two pos 

 itive strokes, or 

 presses two sec 

 tions to each round 

 of the horse, and &quot;^ 

 the power is also 

 doubled at the time BALING PRESS BY STEAM POWER. 



the work is done. The second is a press driven by a portable agricultural steam-engine, such 

 as is ordinarily used for threshing grain, although the power of such an engine is sufficient 

 for two or three presses of this kind. 



Aftermath or Rowen, although not as nutritious as hay made from mature grass, 

 and as it does not furnish that fibrin which mature grass furnishes, and consequently not 

 desirable as food for horses and oxen, upon whose muscular system the great tax of labor is 

 laid, still, for calves, sheep, and milch-cows, there is no forage crop that will surpass it. It 

 approaches the nearest of anything to the green food produced by our pastures in summer 

 for these animals, and for winter use furnishes a very desirable substitute. 



By cutting the grass crop early, before the plant has become exhausted in seed produc 

 tion, the aftermath will have a longer time for growth before being cut, and thus a better 

 crop secured, the great difficulty with rowen having formerly been that it came so late in the 

 season as to render its harvesting difficult, and hence it was often secured in an uncured con 

 dition. But with an early hay harvest, the second crop can be secured earlier, and can be 

 cured mostly in cocks, which requires but little extra labor, and the former difficulty 

 obviated. 



Cultivating Grass Seed. The first sowing of grass seed in this country, by our fore 

 fathers, was made from seeds of grasses collected from the barn-floor, and from under hay 

 stacks. This was sown with the chaff, they having no available means of separating such 

 small seeds from the chafr. This method was practiced for a long time. Their next step 

 towards progress in this branch of agriculture, we are told, was to sow a small quantity of 

 seeds of those grasses they thought most desirable, upon the ground in which they had culti 

 vated their hoed crops. We of the present age have improved upon their method, but we 

 are far behind the English in the variety of grasses cultivated: we should not only sow a 

 greater variety than we now do, but more abundantly also. To secure the best results, the 

 land should be well plowed and manured, the soil well pulverized, and pains taken to keep 

 the land free from other grasses than the variety desired for producing the seed. When the 



