50 
THE PAKMEr’s manual. 
A few loads of clover may always be housed in this 
mode with safety ; but if your fields are large, some 
precaution will become necessary to guard your mows 
against heating, which is not only injurious to the clo- 
ver, but will prove injurious to your horses, and give 
them a cough. To prevent both these evils, let your 
clover stand in the cock a day or two longer ; open it 
carefully when you are ready to cart, without spread- 
ing ; let your bays be open under the bottom, for a 
free circulation of air; fill several large bags with 
hay, set them erect upon the floor of your bays, mow 
the clover around them with as little treading as pos- 
sible; raise up the bags with the rise of your mow, 
and when your mow is finished, remove the bags ; 
these openings will serve as ventilators, and secure 
your mows from heating. 1^ you reserve your wheat 
or rye straw for this purpose, and cover your clover 
occasionally, as you mow it, with straw ; your strtiw 
will not only prevent your mow from heating, but 
imbibe the moisture of your clover, and become va- 
in curing ; therefore, never sow less than 5 or 6 quarts to the acre. 
Whenever your clover has sw eat and cured in the cock, so that you 
can select the largest stalks, and twist theoflike a string, without 
their emitting any moisture upon the surface, when twisted, you may 
then house your clover ; it is in its most perfect state. If you sow ti- 
mothy, or herds-grass with your clover, you may manage iii this way, 
for the first year, with safety — the second year it will become about 
one half timothy, or herds-grass, and must be spread and turned gent- 
ly, to preserve as much as possible the heads and leaves of your clo- 
ver; the third year, your clover will disappear, and the herds-gr.ass 
must be spread and cured in the common mode ; 1 say the common 
mode, for I presume that every farmer spreads his hay iulo 3 Swath 
winrows ; (unless it be heavy Knglish grass, of 2 or 3 tons to the acre, 
which will occupy all the surface of the field on which it grew, (o 
cure it ;) this saves the expense and trouble of one raking, and that he 
•preads in the forenoon all the swaths cut before 12 o’clock, (leav- 
ing the swaths cut after 12 o’clock, to continue in the swath pntil the 
dew is off the next morning,) and that he gets into cocks, before S or6 
o’clock in the afternoon, all the hay spread upon his field. The fer- 
mebtation wlpch hay unilergoes by standing in the cock over night, 
not only sweetens the hay, but prepares it for a more rapid evapora- 
tion of its juices the next day, and will doubly pay the expense of 
cocking, besides the security it affords against bad weather. 
