METHODS OF CUTTING. 307 



If the seed is allowed to ripen, it exhausts the soil 

 far more than if cut in the blossom. 



The old methods of cutting grass for hay are familiar 

 to every practical farmer. The hay crop of the coun- 

 try must be gathered at a season when labor is to be 

 obtained with difficulty, and at even higher than the* 

 usual high wages, and when the weather is often fickle 

 and precarious, generally oppressively hot, making the 

 task doubly irksome and wearing. But, besides this, 

 many acres of grass on our ordinary farms ripen at 



Fig. 161. Common Scythes. 



about the same time, which, if allowed to stand too 

 long, will decrease in quantity and value of hay which 

 might otherwise have been made from it. This last 

 consideration I regard as one of the strongest reasons 

 for availing ourselves of the use of the mowing 

 machine, by which it can be secured and saved most 

 quickly, easily, and cheaply. 



Mowing with the common scythe (Fig. 161) is, at 

 best, one of the severest labors on the farm, notwith- 

 standing the efforts of poets and other writers to make 

 people believe it is all fun. It calls into play nearly 

 every voluntary muscle in the body, requiring not only 

 the more frequent and regular movements of these 

 muscles, but, on account of the twisting motion of the 



