50 BULLETIN 578, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
CONCLUSION. 
This study emphasizes the fact that many farmers make hay in a 
haphazard fashion, without any definite method adapted to individual 
conditions. This is especially true of the farmers of the East, where 
comparatively small acreages of hay are grown. In the States where 
large acreages are handled, necessity has brought home to the farmers 
the fact that failure to adopt a method suited to the crew available 
and to the acreage to be harvested may result in poor hay and an 
excessive labor cost. Hence, as a rule, it was found that the more 
efficient methods of handling hay were in vogue in the middle and 
western States. 
It was found that small crews often were more efficient than very 
large ones. This was especially noticeable where the push rake was 
used. Five push rakes often will put into the stack as much hay as 
seven, since the latter, where the haul is short, will bring the hay in 
faster than it can be stacked. 
Baling hay from the field was found to be the cheapest system of 
putting hay into the bale. It should be noted, however, that this 
system usually can be used to advantage only in regions where little 
or no rain falls during the haying season. Bunching enough hay in 
the afternoon to keep the baler busy an hour or two in the morning is 
a common_practice among the more efficient crews studied. This 
obviates loss of time in the morning while the dew is drying from the 
hay in the swath or windrow. The total day’s output of the baler 
often was found to be limited by the capacity of the mower rather 
than by that of the press. In the best practice care is taken to provide 
means for cutting enough hay to keep the presses running at full 
capacity. 
Two reasons why the hay loader is not in more general use were 
given by the farmers visited, namely, the relatively large cash outlay 
entailed and the fact that handling hay on the wagon with a loader is 
very heavy work as compared with driving a push rake. 
The detailed methods illustrated here are given merely as a basis 
of study, to help the hay grower in working out the method best 
adapted to his own conditions. The costs per ton for man and for 
horse labor are only relative, and while in the main perhaps approxi- 
mately correct, at least as regards man labor, they are not intended to 
represent the actual cost of making hay in the several localities 
visited. 
