The Stable Handbook 



To do this successfully requires a little knowledge, 

 and some time expended. Haymaking is pro- 

 verbially uncertain, and of late years a further 

 difficulty has been added to saving a crop of hay 

 successfully. This is the scarcity of labour in 

 country places. You may have your crops ready 

 for cutting, the weather may be fairly favourable. 

 You may look at your fields and know that every 

 day is so much loss to the quality of the crops. 

 For the man who makes hay for his own use is 

 much more concerned with the quality than the 

 quantity of his crops. Farmers often wait too 

 long to cut in order to obtain more weight, but our 

 horse master will care more for quality. I would 

 cut as early as possible, and even risk possible rain 

 rather than let the bloom go off my crop. Early 

 mowing rather increases our prospect of obtaining 

 labour, as the chances are that we shall be first in 

 the field. Nevertheless, we must be prepared for 

 many disappointments. An ingenious friend of 

 mine who has London friends gives a kind of hay- 

 making party, and enlisting his guests and all the 

 servants, in-door and out-door, succeeds often in 

 saving his crops without much outside labour. 

 All alike work hard until the crop is gathered 

 in. Thus he makes twenty to thirty tons of hay 

 in the year, and finds very little need to buy from 

 farmers or dealers. 



But if you have not much land, or none at all, 

 or the grass on what you have is inferior, then 

 i6 



