28 BULLETIN- 873, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The dealer may lose money on account of shrinkage when he buys 

 a certain undoubted amount of excess water in the hay at the price 

 of market hay. Therefore he is wholly justified in assuming that 

 when this loss is caused by shrinkage it is a positive money loss. In 

 order to make up for such loss he advances the selling price when it is 

 within his power to do so. 



WHAT IS HAY? 



The misunderstandings regarding shrinkage, especially those 

 bearing upon economic phases, would never be so widespread as they 

 are to-da}^ if there were a clear and definite understanding as to just 

 what is hay, and if there were standard terms used to designate the 

 kind or condition of hay at any stage of curing. 



It may seem, at first thought, that it is a comparatively easy mat- 

 ter to describe or define hay so that all of those engaged in the pro- 

 duction or utilization of this crop may have a common, definite under- 

 standing concerning it, a product with which almost everyone is more 

 or less familiar. It is only when one undertakes to define the term 

 that he begins to appreciate the difficulties that make practically 

 impossible the framing of a single definition that will embrace all of 

 the different kinds of hay and that will be acceptable to all classes of 

 people engaged in the hay industry. 



These difficulties have nothing to do with the question of grades 

 or quality of hay as they are known on the market, because the 

 question of grade concerns only a definite and well-understood kind 

 of hay. The unqualified term "hay," however, may mean any one 

 of a great number of things, from grass that has been just cut to hay 

 that contains less than the normal water content. In 'view of this 

 fact it becomes apparent that to be able to define precisely it will 

 be necessary to have not merely one, but several definitions, each of 

 which should describe accurately a particular kind of hay. 



INDISCRIMINATE USE OF TERMS. 



No one class of men concerned with the hay industry may be said 

 to be responsible for the present conflicting ideas as to just what 

 constitutes hay. Hay, in the farm management or labor sense, may 

 be something quite different from hay as viewed from the standpoint 

 of the city commission man or the consumer. For example, it is 

 quite common, indeed almost universal, for the farmer to speak of 

 "mowing hay," "tedding hay," or "cocking hay," when as a mat- 

 ter of fact the material thus spoken of is not in reality hay at all. 

 Strictly speaking, we mow grass, and use the tedder on fresh or 

 partly cured forage that is being made into hay. 



The many terms commonly used to describe hay that is ready to 

 be put into the stack, barn, or bale are given in Table III. 



