36 FORAGE CONDITIONS ON NORTHERN BORDER OF GREAT BASIN. 



possible expense. On the majority of the ranches practically all of 

 the work is done by machinery. There are some, however, who pur- 

 posely sacrifice speed and manual effort in the handling of alfalfa, 

 especially, to enable them to gather the crop with less loss than by the 

 use of machinery, but more will be said regarding this feature later. 



In harvesting a crop of hay a crew of from sixteen to thirty men is 

 employed to attend to the various operations of mowing, stacking, 

 bucking, net tending, hoisting, sickle grinding, and blacksmithing 

 during the entire haying season, which lasts from two to three months. 

 Pis. VIII, figs. 1 and 2, IX, figs. 1 and 2, and X, fig. 2, show some of 

 the machinery used in stacking or piling up the hay, as the process is 

 often very appropriately called, in actual operation on the ranches in 

 eastern Oregon. Probably the most rapid method of any in vogue is 

 that known as the c ' slide " method, which is employed only on the largest 

 ranches where native hay is the predominating crop. A ' ' slide " consists 

 essentially of a huge, strongly built inclined plane. The hay is brought 

 up to the base of the plane, usually by a four-horse buck, and deposited 

 in a net, to which is fastened a cable stretched over the top of the plane 

 and the entire stack. The other end of the cable is attached to the 

 fore truck of a wagon, to which is hitched a four-horse team. When 

 the load has been drawn up and discharged in the proper place on the 

 stack, the net is drawn back to the base of the plane again by a single 

 horse, readjusted, and reloaded. The four-horse buckload will average 

 about one ton of hay, and a load will be run onto the stack once in six 

 to eight minutes when the machinery is in good working order. PL 

 VIII, fig. 1, shows the process of stacking by the use of this machine 

 in actual operation on the Island Ranch, near Burns, Oreg. Another 

 method more extensively employed than the " slide" is represented in 

 PL IX, fig. 1. This is very similar to the former, differing from it 

 only in the substitution of a derrick for the slide. The bucks and net 

 are used in both cases, but their capacity is usually smaller than those 

 operated by four horses instead of two. Where the ground is very 

 rough a drag buck is substituted for the wheeled one in ordinary use. 

 PL X, fig. 2, illustrates one of the large four-horse bucks — the smaller 

 ones differ but little except in size. 



Both of these processes are best adapted to the handling of native 

 hay, which is not much injured by rough treatment. The bucks are 

 especially hard on alfalfa, one of the most difficult hay crops to cure 

 and handle properly. With rough treatment, such as it is certain to 

 receive when bucked to the stack, the friable leaves, the most valuable 

 part of the plant, are almost certain to be largely broken off. To obvi- 

 ate this very decided objection many of the ranchers discard the bucks 

 entirely in handling the alfalfa crop and haul the hay to the stack in 

 wagons. It is then unloaded by means of a derrick or tripod arrange- 

 ment and a Jackson fork, as shown in Pis. VIII. fig. 1, and IX, fig. 2. 



