190 



Oat Hay. 



Vol. VI. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Oat Hay. 



Mr. Editor, — It has long- been known that 

 the oat crop, when thickly sown on a hiofhly 

 manured soil, forms one of the most valuable 

 green crops for soiling all kinds of cattle, as 

 well as horses, coming off in time for the 

 land to be sown with turnips, beets or buck- 

 wheat, or even to be planted to potatoes, leav- 

 ing the soil perfectly clean and in the most 

 suitable order for these crops ; but it appears 

 from a late account, that the same crop when 

 cut green has been made into hay of the 

 finest quality, the quantity being also very 

 great. I here present you with the particu- 

 lars of an experiment made by W. Stewart, 

 Esq., Peebleshire, Scotland, for insertion in 

 your valuable pages. He says, 



" Having a field of 14 acres which had 

 been partially furrow-drained, and from which 

 a crop of oats had been taken to prepare for 

 a green crop; finding there were about four 

 acres which required complete draining, and 

 that it would be the better for extra-working, 

 I determined upon sowing it with oats for the 

 purpose of making them into hay ; and this I 

 did on the llih day of March, sowing 26 

 bushels of seed on the four acres, without 

 manure. So soon as the flower was a week 

 out of the shot-blade, on the 27th of July, I 

 began mowing them ; the crop was put into 

 temporary stack on the 7th of August, and 

 after a few days it was carted to the barn- 

 yard and put into ricks of three or four cart- 

 loads each, for the convenience of leading 

 into the hay-loft. The produce of the four 

 acres was 15,224 pounds of hay. The horses 

 prefer this fodder to every other kind of hay, 

 and I have now before me my farm-steward's 

 letter, saying, " The horses getting common 

 oat fodder are in tolerable condition, but those 

 getting oat hay and eating the same quantity 

 of oats and doing the same work, are as fat 

 as they can be." Annexed is a statement of 

 the expense of the oat-hay experiment. 



Cost of 20 bushels oats for seed £4 6 8 



Work on the land 1 ]6 



Mowing, four days 110 



Making hay from 27th July to 7th Aug. . . IS 6 



Carting and stacking 13 6 



692 stones hay— 22 lbs.— at 6d 17 6 



Leaving a clear profit of X3 12 4 



independent of the manure." 



Now, sir, I think your readers will agree 

 with me in considering this one of the most 

 curious and interesting statements that have 

 ever found their way to this country ; and if 

 it does not go far to bear out the reasoning 

 of your correspondent " Vir" in your last 

 number, on " American farming," 1 must have 

 read that article to little purpose to be so mis- 

 taken. But what must we think of sowing 



six bushels and a half of seed-oats per acrel 

 it would not be easy to persuade many, that 

 a7iy return can repay such an outlay, any 

 how ! And then the mowers, being four 

 days cutting four acres of green oats, at an 

 expense, for this work alone, of five dollars, 

 and a farther expense of nearly as much for 

 eleven days drying and preparing and putting 

 into temporary stacks, to be pulled to pieces 

 in a few days and taken to the barn-yard, 

 there to be re-erected in larger stacks, prepa- 

 ratory and convenient for a final removal to 

 the hay-loft, at an expense of three dollars 

 more. Say, therefore, for mowing, making 

 and carrying four acres of oats, thirteen dol- 

 lars ! And if to this be added the cost of 

 seed and the labour of working the land, the 

 last item alone being about nine dollars, we 

 must be astonished to find that even then 

 there remains a profit amounting, manure 

 included, to more than the whole expense, 

 valuing the hay at about one-half cent per 

 pound. After this, I do not hesitate to put 

 the difference between an American and a 

 Scotch climate to a " whole rent," and if ele- 

 ven days spent in drying a crop of hay, sufS- 

 cient only for carrying into temporary stacks, 

 be not enough to confirm lis of this fact, I 

 know not v.'hat more we can expect to re- 

 ceive in the way of evidence. As is said by 

 your correspondent, here is proof positive that 

 neither the cradle-scythe nor the horse-rake 

 are yet known there ; and in a climate so 

 humid as to require eleven days to dry a crop 

 only partially, and so uncertain as to require 

 tliat that crop shall bo put into two separate 

 fixings before it reaches the hay-loft, lest the 

 rain should be down upon it and spoil all, no 

 hope must ever be entertained of getting off 

 the grain-crop in time for a second crop of 

 turnips, beets or buckwheat, or of raising corn 

 at all ; while, judging from the account be- 

 fore us, the difference in the expenses in se- 

 curing a general crop, and the difficulty and 

 uncertainty arising from so late a period of 

 harvest, must, indeed, warrant " Vir's" state- 

 ment, that " the forwardness of the seasons 

 here, by which the farmer is enabled to se- 

 cure his crops, both hay and grain, so early 

 as July, during long days and fine weatlier, 

 often performing the labour of two days in 

 one, with the advantage of immediately re- 

 cropping his land on the removal of his first 

 crops, for the use of himself and his out-door 

 stock in the coming winter, with a moral cer- 

 tainty of obtaining a season of sufficient 

 length to bring them to full maturity ; and 

 after that, to enjoy sufficient space to winter- 

 fallow every acre of unemployed land during 

 the fine weather of autumn — all this is cheap 

 at an extra rent." To be sure the Scotch are 

 exempt from tythe and established-church- 

 rates, nominally so called, but the English cal- 



