TRIAL OF HORSE HAY FORKS. 29 



to compare each fork with the points of excellence which they 

 have chosen for their standard of merit, none of you will accuse 

 us of unfairness and partiality, for we shall aim to render such a 

 report of this trial next week as will reflect great credit on inven- 

 tors and manufacturers of horse hay-forks. 



On Tuesday, March the 12th, Mr. Todd, in behalf of the com- 

 mittee, made the following report to the Farmers' Club : 



Preliminaey Suggestions. 

 Practical farmers are employing horse hay-forks, in a great 

 variety of ways, to save manual labor. Most of them appreciate 

 and fully understand the importance of having a fork with which 

 a horse can perform this kind of drudgery with facility and dis- 

 patch. In the grain-growing regions of our country the entire 

 barley crop is harvested without binding a sheaf of the straw. 

 Those farmers, therefore, who have raised barley know the value 

 of a horse-fork that will pitch a large forkful of barley straw, 

 either before the grain is threshed out or after the straw has been 

 passed through a threshing machine, as the straw of no other 

 cereal grain is so slippery and difficult to pitch as barley straw. 

 In numerous instances the oat crop is harvested without binding 

 the straw, which is also slippery and exceedingly difficult to pitch 

 both before the grain is threshed out and afterwards. Rowen and 

 red clover, when the crop is saved for seed, are among the most 

 difficult substances that farmers desire to pitch, as the stalks are 

 short, sometimes slippery, and will not hang together like the 

 haulm of flax or long hay. Horse-forks are also being employed 

 to a great extent every season for pitching coarse barnyard 

 manure and for the purpose of forking over compost-heaps, and 

 particularly for "heaping" or piling coarse manure when it is to 

 remain in the yard for several months to come. By means of 

 horse-forks, many farmers have learned that their horses, which 

 have heretofore been accustomed to stand idle, can relieve them 

 of a large portion of this heavy labor. In many instances, horse- 

 forks are employed to pitch sheaves of heavy corn-stalks, or 

 sheaves of grain, or bundles of straw on to high mows or stacks. 

 These brief suggestions will enable the committee to understand 

 the true character of the operations to be performed by a horse- 

 fork, and also to decide upon certain points of excellence indi- 

 cating the relative standard of merit possessed by the forks to be 

 tested. 



