4 



Haymaking. 



of sunshine allows of the cocks being turned over, shaken up 

 and re-made, but not shaken out. A properly made cock will 

 stand a week's rain without much harm, but it must be 

 properly made by shaking up the stuff in the first place and 

 thatching the last layers evenly over the top. 



It is remarkable what good hay can be made in bad weather 

 by keeping the stuff in cocks, and how quickly a fieldful of 

 cocks can be " turned " and re-made, when every man takes a 

 row by himself, and the master sets the pace. But even with 

 cocking, as with turning, the swathe, the benefit depends much 

 on the subsequent weather, for it often happens that hay 

 which was let alone will dry faster and be fit to carry 

 when the sun and the wind come, before cocks along- 

 side, which may be slightly clammy inside, and require 

 to be split or turned over for an hour or so before carrying. 

 As stated above, it is generally better to let the hay lie in the 

 swathe untouched. 



After the hay is " made/' the next process is the carrying 

 and stacking, and it is here that there has been such 

 a tremendous evolution of labour-saving machinery 

 within the past few years. The old way — which of course is 

 still the most popular — is to have the hay ready in cocks 

 or windrows, to pick it up with pitchforks and put it on to a 

 cart or waggon, where it is piled by one or two men, roped 

 down and then hauled to the stack. The writer has been told 

 by some of his men that in the old days when beer was 

 plentiful, it sometimes took two hours to load a waggon, while 

 in one of our standard books on farming there is an illustration 

 of a waggon being loaded up with hay, and with three horses 

 in it — -as if this were the pattern to follow. 



Several methods of loading and carrying hay with 

 machinery have been introduced — mostly from America — but 

 the writer proposes to describe and illustrate only one, chiefly 

 because it is the method he has himself practised for several 

 years — it having been introduced by him — and with which he 

 has had the most practical experience. 



The principal implement is called the sweeprake, of which 

 the annexed figure is an illustration (Fig. I.). 



The hay is prepared in windrows or cocks, the horses are 



