1871 ] 



NEW engla:nd farmer. 



527 



The advocates of this plan claim that close 

 packing and exclusion of the air is what is ne- 

 cessary. If this be the case, what would be 

 the cilect of pressing and baling at once? 

 What a deal of trouble would a certain cele- 

 brated speaker and writer on agricultural top- 

 ics lia\ e saved himself, who, after having put 

 into lii^ barn some thirty or forty tons of such 

 imdricd hay, found in a few days that the steam 

 was coming out of every crack and cranny in 

 bis barn, and became so frightened that he 

 had ir all taken out and dried and put back 

 again at an expense probably greater than that 

 of ])utting it in the first time, had he been as- 

 sured that it would have come out right in the 

 end. 



I notice this year that a difference of opin- 

 ion has sprung up among the advocates of this 

 manner of curing grass. Some say that it 

 need not be packed close ; that the air should 

 not be excluded ; that the barn need not be 

 shut up ; and that you may avoid having so 

 much rotten hay on the top by admitting some 

 air. Would anybody have arrived at these 

 conclusions if the close packing system had 

 proved to be as successful as has been claimed ? 



Sin<-e writing the above I have been read- 

 ing the remarks of a Doctor P. Simonton, of 

 INlaine, on the subject of curing hay, in which 

 he refers to what he calls the old method, and 

 which he said originated in the days of wooden 

 pitchforks, when the hay was raided up and 

 spread out over and over again, till all the 

 seed dropped out, the leaves fell olf, and all 

 the fragrant aroma and nutrient juices were 

 gone forever. This way of curing it he very 

 justly calls the poorest of all ways, and then 

 goes on to say that "from all we can see and 

 learn it is the one still most common in prac- 

 tice." 



He then refers to another method so nearly 

 like the editorial on the subject published in 

 the Farmer of June 2i, which I think a most 

 excellent article, that it needs no further notice. 



He then refers to what he calls the third 

 method, — that in which the grass is just wilted 

 and put in and allowed to heat and cure in the 

 mow. Though he does not profess to have 

 any practical experience himself, he refers to 

 a statement of a JVlr. Larrabee, of Searsport, 

 to confirm the truth of his theory. Mr. Lar- 

 rabee says that he mowed two tons of ^rass 

 after the dew was off, and put it on a scaffold 

 in his barn, and that was all he did to it. "It 

 went through a process of heat and sweating 

 which caused the upper part, some ten or 

 twelve inches thick, to spoil for eating pur- 

 poses. All below this proved excellent hay. 

 Some of the leaves turned black, but nearly 

 all of the useful parts which are lost by the 

 drying method being saved, it was very . rich 

 in fodder and was much better relished by the 

 stock than common dried hay." 



Now it seems to me that Doctor S. was very 

 unfortunate in his selection of a case to illus- 

 trate the truth of his theory. If these two 



tons of hay bad been put on a scaffold twelve 

 feet s(]uare, this rotten layer would measure 

 144 cubic feet. Allowing 600 cubic feet for 

 a ton, it would weigh 3oo pounds. This at 

 $00 per ton would come to §5.72. Now if a 

 mow of ten tons is going to spoil in the same 

 proportion, it will be 16G0 pounds and a frac- 

 tion, making $25.05, to say nothing of the ex- 

 tra labor to handle over water enough to rot 

 this amoimt of hay. This amount of money 

 would, in my opinion, richly pay for the extra 

 work of drying the hay accordmg to my idea 

 of curing hay. 



One of the objections in my mind to the 

 new way is the necessity of handling grass 

 with so great an amount of water in it. It is 

 heavy stuff to pitch and cart. I think it much 

 better to evaporate this water in the field than 

 to take it to the barn to go through the process 

 there. 



I do not speak unadvisedly on this matter. 

 I find by actual trial that one hundred pounds 

 of grass that had laid seven hours in the sun 

 on a good hay day, and was afterwards treated 

 in every other way as was the balance of the 

 lot, lost in drying, forty-six pounds, leaving 

 fifty-four pounds of dry hay in such a state as 

 I would be willing to mow away ten or fifteen 

 tons together. Now as I cut usually about 

 100 tons of hay, cured 'as I cure it, I should 

 be obliged on this new plan to handle an ad- 

 ditional forty-six tons of water, which it seems 

 to me is not very economical, as in addition to 

 the extra labor, the evaporation of this large 

 amount of water would greatly injure the 

 building. 



Then again, I keep a stock of thirty-five 

 head of cattle and horses, and they are stalled 

 at night. It seems to me that it would be sub- 

 jecting them to an uncomfortable vapor bath 

 to have the barn shut up tight all through the 

 hot weather while the grass is going through 

 the sweating process. 



Once more, n)y barn contains 3600 square 

 feet of scaffold and mow room. Now if I 

 have got to have one foot of rotten hay all 

 over the surface of these mows, it would equal 

 six tons of dry hay, and at $35 per ton, would 

 be worth $210; the price to be paid for get- 

 ting hay on the new principle, to say nothing 

 of the unpleasant smell that would arise from 

 such a mass of rotting vegetable matter shut 

 up in a tight barn. 



x^LUother objection is, that it is very incon- 

 venient for me to fill a mow, in one or two 

 days, of the same or nearly the same quality, 

 which seems to be a recpiisite of the reformed 

 practice. 



The farm under my care is divided into 

 some twenty lots, containing in all about eighty 

 acres. Of course I have different kinds of 

 hay, — some horse hay ; some for the cows, 

 some for the oxen, and some for the market. 

 I make such a division as I am able in the 

 field, a,nd as I generally make clean work as I 

 go, it is not often that I can get enough of 



