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MOW 



MOW 



air ; fill several large bags with hay, 

 set them erect upon the floor of 

 your bays, mow the clover around 

 them with as little treading as pos- 

 sible ; raise up your bags with the 

 rise of your mow, and when your 

 mow is finished, remove the bags ; 

 these openings will serve as venti- 

 lators, and secure your mows from 

 healing. If you reserve your wheat 

 or rye straw for this purpose, and 

 cover your clover occasionally as 

 you mow it with straw ; your straw 

 ■will not only prevent your mow 

 from heating, but imbibe the mois- 

 ture of your clover, and become 

 valuable feed for your horses and 

 cattle, and thus become a double 

 saving. One bushel of salt sprink- 

 led on your clover, as you mow it, 

 will preserve it against heating,and 

 doubly pay }ou in the value it will 

 give to your hay." 



MOWING, the operation, or art 

 of cutting down grass, corn, &c. 

 with a scythe. 



They who have not been in their 

 youth accustomed to do this work, 

 are seldom found to be able to do 

 it with ease or expeditiun. But 

 when the art is once learnt, it will 

 not be lost. 



As this is one of the most labori- 

 ous parts of the husbandman's cal- 

 ling, and the more fatiguing as it 

 must be performed in the hottest 

 season of the year, every precau- 

 tion ought to be used which tends 

 to lighten the labour. To this it 

 will conduce not a little, for the 

 mower to rise very early, and be at 

 his work before the rising of the 

 sun. He may easily perform half 

 the usual day's work before nine in 

 the morning. His work will not on- 



ly be made easier by the coolness 

 of the morning air, but also by the 

 dew on the grass, which is cut the 

 more easily for being wet. By this 

 means he may lie still and rest him- 

 self during all the hottest of the 

 day, while others who begun late 

 afe sweating themselves excessive^ 

 ly ; and hurting their health, pro- 

 bably, by taking down large 

 draughts of cold drink to slake their 

 raging thirst. The other half of 

 his work may be performed after 

 three or four o'clock ; and at night 

 he will find himself free from l"a- 

 tigue. 



If the mower would husband his 

 strength to advantage, he should 

 take care to have his scythe, and 

 all the apparatus for mowing, in 

 the best order. His scythe ought 

 to be adapted to the surface on 

 which he mows. If the surface 

 be level and free from obstacles, the 

 scythe may be long and almost 

 straight; and he will perform his 

 work with less labour, and greater 

 expedition. But if the surface be 

 uneven, cradley, or chequered with 

 stones, or stumps of trees, his scythe 

 must be short and crooked. Other- 

 wise he will be obliged to leave 

 much of the grass uncut, or use 

 more labour in cutting it. A long 

 and straight scythe will only cutoff 

 the tops of the grass in hollows. 



A mower should not have asnead 

 that is too slender; for this will 

 keep the scythe in a continual tre- 

 mor, and do much to hinder its cut- 

 j ting. He must see that it keeps 

 I perfectly fast on the snead ; for the 

 > leastdegreeof looseness will oblige 

 him to use the more violence at 

 I every stroke. Many worry them- 



