120 FARMING ON FACTORY LINES 



ment, the body of the bogie tilts up. The horse steps 

 up a pace or two, and the whole pike slides off. Here 

 another advantage of the system comes into operation. 

 There is not half the trouble in lifting hay with a 

 horse fork, that has been allowed to settle in a pike, 

 that there is in lifting loose hay either off the floor or 

 off a waggon or cart. Therefore, there is no delay at 

 the stack with the horses or the man in charge of 

 same. 



In other words, two hay bogies with two horses, 

 and two men leading and a boy in the field to help in 

 loading, will bring home more hay in a day than four 

 horses and waggons or carts, with four men leading 

 same and six men in the field loading. 



HAY LOADERS OR SW r EEPS? 



Of course, on many farms nowadays hay loaders 

 are used, and the labour of lifting on to waggons or 

 carts is dispensed with. Nevertheless, it is really 

 only under ideal weather conditions — that is, when 

 hay can be taken out of the swathes without any 

 preliminary rolling together of hand-cocks or pikes — 

 that a hay loader can be used with any degree of 

 satisfaction. If weather conditions are of such a 

 nature that the hay crop has to be cocked, then, before 

 the hay loader can handle a crop with any degree of 

 satisfaction, the cocks have to be spread out. 



Again, on a windy day or on uneven land or 

 working against a steep hill, a hay loader does not 

 give very great satisfaction. 



All considered, the writer after giving a lot of 

 thought to the subject would prefer to equip a farm 

 with the necessary machinery for making hay on the 

 pike system than to purchase a hay loader and to 

 cart the crop home out of the swathe to the stack. 



