HAYING MACHINERY 169 



automatically thrown out of gear. When the bar is 

 lowered the mower is again put in gear. 



241. Draft connections. The hitch on mowers is 

 usually made low and below the tongue. A direct con- 

 nection is sometimes made to the drag bar with a draft 

 rod. This is styled a draw cut, and may have some ad- 

 vantage in applying the power more directly to the point 

 where it is used. 



242. Troubles with mowers. If a mower fails to cut 

 the grass and leave a clean stubble, there may be several 

 things wrong: (i) the knife or sickle may be dull; (2) it 

 may not fit well over the ledger plates, losing the advan- 

 tages of a shear cut; (3) the knife may not register, or, in 

 other words, it travels too far in one direction and not 

 far enough in the other. The first of these troubles may 

 be remedied by grinding, the second by adjusting the 

 clips on top of the knife. There should be but a very 

 slight clearance under these clips, and the exact amount 

 has been given as i/ioo inch. To make the knife register 

 in some makes, the pitman must be adjusted, while in 

 others the yoke must be adjusted. If the mower leaves a 

 narrow strip of grass uncut, it indicates that one of the 

 guards has been bent down, a common thing to happen 

 to mowers used in stony fields. Mower guards are now uni- 

 versally made of malleable iron and may be hammered into 

 line with a few sharp blows with a hammer. The guards 

 may be lined up by raising the cutter bar and sighting 

 over the ledger plates and along the points of the guards. 



243. A windrowing attachment consists in a set of 

 curved fingers attached to the rear of the cutter bar, 

 which rolls the swath into a windrow. It is useful in cut- 

 ting clover, peas, and buckwheat. The attachment may 

 be used as a buncher with the addition of fingers to hold 

 the swath until tripped. 



