HAYSAVING AND HAYMAKING 43 



All they know is that they make good hay — they 

 just have the knack of doing it, just as, long before dairy 

 bacteriology was thought of, there were many farmers' 

 wives who had the knack of making good butter, or 

 cheese, without knowing exactly how they did it. 



As a general rule, there is more bad hay made 

 annually than good. Even where the best of hay is 

 made, in ninety-five out of one hundred cases far too 

 much labour is spent on the work. 



THE WRONG WAY 



Haymaking to-day is, or at least should be, quite 

 a different thing from what it was twenty years ago. 

 Machinery and the advancement of science make the 

 difference. Yet I have watched neighbouring farmers 

 in County Meath and other grass countries where hay 

 is the only crop harvested, and where one would 

 naturally expect the most up-to-date method to obtain, 

 but instead the method followed is practically the 

 same as when Young made his famous tour through 

 Ireland over 150 years ago. 



First the crop is mown, and then allowed to lie in 

 the swathe for four or five days in fine weather and 

 maybe two or three weeks if the weather is broken. 

 Then, be it soon or late, when the top layer of the 

 swathe is nicely dried, and assuming that the sun is 

 shining, or there is a good drying wind, the swathes are 

 tossed about — on a small scale by hand and on a large 

 scale by a hay-kicker. 



This tossing is done two or three times, the idea being 

 to get the stuff absolutely dry. Next it is put into 

 small lap cocks, as they are called. These lap cocks are 

 simply bundles of half-dried grass, roughly thrown 

 together. Were they made neat and topped off, so as to 

 throw off the rain, they would be of some utility, but 

 made as they are they are worse than useless. 



