Hay Caps 



"I just bought four hundred hay caps, forty by forty inches," he 

 went on. "The first clear day I am going to cut the whole business, 

 rake it up the next day and bunch it into cocks of about one hundred 

 pounds each, put on the canvas caps with weights at each corner 

 and let her rain! That's Governor Hoard's way of making alfalfa 

 hay. They say he swears by it, and he has grown alfalfa a good 

 many years. 



"Of course, it looks like a lot of work for fellows who are used to 

 doing things in quick fashion with a side delivery and the hay loader. 

 And if it wasn't for this continued rain I wouldn't bother with hay 

 caps. I'd cure it in the windrow and load it up with my drum loader. 

 But with such rains as we have had alfalfa in windrows would have 

 to be handled with a six-tined fork. It would either be silage or 

 manure. So I thought I would try out the caps." 



Haying with Napkins 



"Well, Sam," replied the neighbor, "if there is one thing that has 

 kept me from growing alfalfa it has been this fancy napkin way of 

 putting up the hay. Somehow I got the idea that the only way it 

 was possible to get alfalfa cured so you could safely put it in the 



Fig. 57- Saving Labor. 



The bunches are spread out to dry the interior before loading. 



barn was to cock it up, put a canvas cap on it, and then after a few 

 days pitch and load the whole business just the way we made hay 

 years ago. For us that's too slow. It may be all right for the fellow 

 with a little patch, but when you have got forty or fifty acres to 

 harvest why, if we had that much alfalfa wa would be haying until 

 Christmas, and then not be through!" 



The Hustler's Hay 



"I quite agree with you," replied Sam. "You will remember 

 that last year I put up my three crops with the side delivery and 



70 



