292 Summer — July. 
delight. The mowers moving gracefully in concert, the grass 
falling beneath the scythe — its grateful fragrance — the tending 
and raking the hay — the loading of the carts to remove it to the 
barn, all excite a sensible pleasure in almost every mind. 
The present month, taken generally, may be considered as the 
busiest time of hay-making, for while in some warm and favored 
situations we often find old meadows and some luxuriant fields of 
clover fit to cut the latter part of June, yet the greater bulk of the 
crop in this section is usually carried to the barn during this 
month. In some districts, where the weather proves rainy and 
unsettled, the farmer who does not wish to incur much expense in 
wages, may frequently be seen engaged in hay-making so late in 
the season as the month of September. On the whole, however, 
they are losers by making hay so out of the season; for although 
the grass that has remained uncut till it is so old and sapless may 
not require so much labor in the curing, in quality it is hardly su- 
perior to straw; and besides the soil being greatly impoverished 
by permitting the plants to mature their seeds, there is no second 
crop to afford pasture for milk cows and other cattle during the 
latter part of autumn, when the summer pastures have become 
exhausted; besides which, from the general want of covering, 
diould the winter prove severe, and the fields remain naked, the 
future crops will in some measure be injuriously affected. 
Every person knows that good husbandry, in all ordinary cir- 
cumstances, requires the farmer to cut his grass only when he has 
indications of fair weather for a day or two. He should mow 
when the prospect is good that the sun will shine. We have seen 
it sometimes recommended to hay makers to rise very early, com- 
mencing their labors in the cool of the morning, get their work 
along so as to rest for two or three hours in the hottest part of the 
day, and then extend their labors into the evening. This advice 
has come from those probably, who know but little about the mat- 
ter in question, and who benevolently design to inform the hay- 
maker how he can perform his labors successfully, and yet avoid 
part of his customary exposure to the heat of the midday sun. 
So far from advising hay makers to rest in the shade awhile at 
fioon, our advice to them is to be stirring most actively in the 
middle of the day. " Make hay while the sun shines," is an old 
proverb and a good one. If this process is found too exhausting, 
