IN THE DIFFERENT STATES I33 



pounds to the acre, harrow very lightly, across the 

 drill-marks, and, if grain has been sown, with a Scotch 

 harrow. "We are indifferent to the effeds of late frost 

 upon the young plants. If sown with barley, as 

 stated, we pasture the meadow or grain stubble; if 

 sown by itself and irrigated, we cut two tons to the 

 acre; if in June the field sown with alfalfa alone is 

 weedy, we run a mower over it, with the cutter set 

 low; then irrigate as soon as plants will bear the apph- 

 cation of water without the soil baking. 



' ' "We begin mowing the first crop as soon as the first 

 few blooms begin to show; in cutting thus early we 

 ' make up on our codfish what we lose on our mack- 

 erel, ' as the second cutting comes that much earlier. 

 "We cut twice, and in the lower valleys three times. 

 The yield is from two to seven tons per acre, depend- 

 ing on age of meadow, stand, water-supply, etc. Five 

 tons would be a fair estimate of the Montana yield. 

 The bulk of alfalfa in Montana is cut under contradt. 

 The owners mow the meadow, and contradtors take it 

 in the swath and put into stacks for from 75 cents 

 to 90 cents per ton. Hay outfits working on modern 

 lines run three men, five horses, and a hay-stacker, 

 and it is estimated that stacking forty tons is a day's 

 work for such an outfit. About half a ton of hay is 

 brought to the stack out of the swath upon a low- 

 running ■ go-devil ; ' this is so constru<5ted that it is 

 tilted by a system of ropes and -pulleys up and onto the 

 stack; very little hand-fork wprk is done, and the old 

 hay-wagon is relegated to the rear. Mowers begin 

 running as soon as the dew is off, say at 9.30 or 10 a.m. 

 Hay lies in the swath until 2 p.m. if it is clear and dry, 

 as it usually is at haying-time. A two-horse rake 



