HOW WE MADE OUR HAY. 



Meadows shut up in February — How treated — Mowing Machine — 

 Nettles — Thistles— Trial of Machine — Failure — Knife sharpened 

 — Consequent Success — Hay-tedding — Wind-rows — Summer- 

 cocks — Middlesex Plan. 



We had turned out of the meadows intended for 

 hay on the 2nd of February. The ewes had run 

 upon them up to that time, having night and morning 

 a few turnips and a handful of corn each ; the troughs 

 being moved every third day, until every part of 

 the field had been gone over by squares, and was 

 thoroughly w r ell dressed. The flock was not, how- 

 ever, folded or confined by hurdles to the particular 

 spot, but usually lay about the troughs, unless driven 

 to shelter by the weather. Previous to this treat- 

 ment, when I succeeded to the farm, I was informed 

 by the last occupant that off one of them a hay crop 

 could never be got. It had been made up in a great 

 measure by the union of several small (fallow) crofts, 

 the fences having been pulled down, and the natural 

 herbage that sprang up allowed to overspread the 

 surface, without any attempt being made to lay it 

 down in seeds, a good portion being suffocated by a 

 thick carpeting of moss, fitted only for the pasture of 

 a reindeer. 



