46 CONTINUOUS CROPPING 



It is at the gathering-in stage and at the first 

 carting and stacking that great judgment is required. 

 This judgment is a matter of experience, but as a guide 

 as to when the gathering-in stage has been reached, 

 a fairly rehable test is as follows : Take a straw-band 

 twister, and, with the help of an assistant, twist a 

 piece of the stuff into a very tight rope band. If 

 juice or moisture sufficient to damp the hand holding 

 the rope cannot be squeezed out of the stuff by this 

 plan it is fit to gather in. 



To revert to the actual haymaking. Up to this point 

 we have gone along by saving hay on paper (a very 

 easy thing to do), and by assuming good weather 

 conditions, but the general lesson to be learned from 

 the foregoing is that we have let the very ancient 

 axiom " Make hay whilst the sun shines *' go by the 

 board. 



AIR-DRYING HAY 



To-day, with that marvellous invention the swathe 

 turner, we make hay whether the sun shines or not, 

 realising that the constant turning to and fro will dry 

 the hay in a manner which can only be appreciated to 

 its full value when tried. Even in the absence of both 

 wind and sun constant turning will dry a crop. 



It should not be imagined, though, that an old hay 

 kicker or tedder can be used for this constant turning 

 work, especially for a tare crop. Those old tools batter 

 the crop, knock out the seed, break the fibre, and if 

 after tedding it should rain, the stuff gets as wet as wet 

 rags. The swathe turner preserves the swathes intact 

 so that they can turn a considerable amount of rain. 



In buying a swathe turner, the small farmer should 

 certainly buy a combined implement, that is a 

 machine which can be used as a swathe turner, a side 

 tedder, and a side delivery rake — three implements in 



