50 Recent Improvements in Haymaking. 
A published statement of the cost of haymaking at Frocester 
Court, in Gloucestershire makes the hand-mowing only 2a'. 6c?. 
per acre, with \dd. for beer. The entire cost of haymaking is 
entered, in 1851, at 7s. ^d. per acre over 123 acres; in 1852, 
at 8s. 8c?. ; in 1856 and 1857, at 8s. In 1859 the mowing- 
machine was used, in addition to the hay-tedders and horse-rake ; 
and the whole cost of manual labour in mowing, making, carry- 
ing, ricking, and thatching 170 acres was only 6s. per acre. 
Now here, with an average breadth of 200 acres or thereabouts, 
mowing by hand has ranged, in the past seven years, from 4s. Gc?. 
to 6s. per acre ; while the whole operation, including thatching, 
has varied from 17s. to lis. Qd. per acre; which price we have 
not got below, even with the use of the mowing-machine, in the 
last two years. These, however, have been seasons of great 
summer rainfall, as the following extract from our register 
shows : — 
Eainy Days. 
Depth of Rain. 
June. 
July. 
June. July. 
1858 .. 
4 
8 
2-51 2-48 
1859 .. 
.. 11 
8 
2-45 2-95 
1860 .. 
.. 27 
12 
5-70 1-95 
1861 .. 
.. 18 
25 
3-01 4-30 
A glance at these notes also proves most incontestably that, 
under any species of management, the state of the weather has 
much to do with haymaking results.* In the two drier years hay 
was well and easily got ; while in the two latter, the operation 
bore a complete contrast to our earlier experience. In 1860 in 
particular the chief difficulty was how to make hay in cloudy 
weather alternating with pouring rain ; and the chief lesson learnt 
was, that a strong staff of hands is essential. We managed, with 
one of Burgess and Key's implements, to dispense with half-a- 
dozen able-bodied mowers, while another half-dozen were also 
frequently taken from their work on pressing occasions. As 
regards the mowing-machine in that unfavourable season, 
although there were many annoyances arising from stoppages 
among tangled and heavy crops, yet we never lost an hour's 
carrying by keeping it at work, while it • gave us a power over 
the whole operation which could not otherwise have been 
obtained. 
This, therefore, leads us to refer, to improved machinery as 
affecting the first branch of the subject. The haymaker, horse- 
rake, and mowing-machine, have tended greatly to diminish the 
amount of manual labour needed. The former implement has 
* See Addendum on haymaking in a wet climate, p. 62, infra. 
