HARVESTING HAY IN THE WEST. 
To make alfalfa hay a man needs wide-cut mowers, 
a supply of rakes, forks and men, then unlimited 
faith and hopefulness. Especially is this true in the 
humid Hast. In the West it is not so much a matter 
of dodging showers as it is of economizing labor. In 
the East it is a struggle to get the hay dry enough, in 
the West a struggle to keep it from getting too dry 
and thus losing its leaves. 
When Ready to Cut.—Before starting the mowers 
the farmer should get down on his knees in the field 
and examine the stage of growth of the plants. It 
is not possible to judge accurately by the state of 
bloom or any other external sign. He must part 
the stems and look down close to the earth to see if 
the little shoots have formed, the shoots that sucker 
out from the bases of the stems and that are to make 
new growth. If these shoots, some call them ‘‘buds,’’ 
have not appeared, then one takes risk of injuring 
his second crop by cutting. He had better as a rule 
wait a few days. It is hard to explain the injury 
that sometimes comes to alfalfa when mown off too 
soon. The succeeding crop may be lessened by half 
or more if the alfalfa is mown off too early. 
Nor can a man delay long after these buds ap- 
pear without injuring his alfalfa. This injury 
comes from two sources: for one thing the stems 
become woody and the leaves are lost; then the 
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