THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Vol. IX. No. 1. JUNE, 1902. 



HAYMAKING. 



Within the last ten or fifteen years the practice of hay- 

 making has become so much modified that it is now a com- 

 pletely different operation, or series of operations, from that 

 which obtained in the boyhood of men still young. The 

 writer can remember when the scythe, rake, pitchfork and 

 cart were absolutely the whole outfit needed for the work., 

 while now nearly every one of these — even the pitchfork — has 

 been practically discarded, and all the labour is now done by 

 horse-driven implements, excepting where haymaking is 

 carried out on a small scale. 



To show wherein this advance has been made it will per- 

 haps be best to take up each operation seriatim, and point 

 •out what are now considered the most approved and advanced 

 methods, beginning with the cutting of the grass. 



The mowing machine has been in use for over thirty years, 

 but the machine of to-day is a very different article from what 

 it was a generation ago. Without going into details it need 

 only be pointed out that in those early days a swathe of three 

 feet to three feet and a half wide was the usual thing, while 

 now five and six feet are quite common, and the work is quite 

 as well within the power of two horses as the old' size was in 

 its time — so much more easily and more perfectly are all the 

 details of the mechanism made to work now. The chief 

 trouble is with the land : if the surface of the field is irregular, 

 or if there are deep furrows in it, then the short knife bar 

 makes the best job, but where the land is fairly even the 



