XXYI. 



HAT AND HAT-MAKING. 



THE Grass-crop of this, as of many, if not most, 

 other countries, is undoubtedly the most important 

 of its annual products ; requiring by far the largest 

 area of its soil, and furnishing the principal food of 

 its Cattle, and thus contributing essentially to the 

 subsistence of its working animals and to the pro- 

 duction of those Meats which form a large and con- 

 stantly increasing proportion of the food of every 

 civilized people. But I propose to speak in this es- 

 say of that proportion of the Grass-crop say 25 to 35 

 per cent, of the whole which is cut, cured and 

 housed (or stacked) for Hay, and which is mainly fed 

 out to animals in Winter and Spring, when frost and 

 snow have divested the earth of herbage or rendered 

 it inaccessible. 



The Seventh Census (1 850) returned the Hay-crop 

 of the preceding year at 1 3,838,642 tuns, which the 

 Eighth Census increased to 19,129,128 tuns as the 

 product of 1 1859. Confidant that most farmers un- 

 der-estimate their Hay-crops, and that hundreds of 

 thousands who do not consider themselves farmers, 

 tmt who own or rent little homesteads of two to ten 

 ('5) 



