1908. 
GETTING HAY INTO THE BARN. 
Why I Prefer Slings. 
In reply to the recent inquiry in The R. N.-Y. re¬ 
garding appliances for unloading hay and grain, I will 
tell of my experience with slings. I have used single 
and double harpoon and grapple forks, but consider 
that the slings which I have used for the past 20 
years are as far ahead of any fork that I ever saw in 
use, as that is ahead of hand pitching. For our 
heaviest loads we never use more than three slings, 
and many times use only two.' One sling is laid on 
bottom of the sack when unloaded at the barn, and 
the other one or two, as the case may be, carried to the 
field on the rear standard and laid in as the load is 
being put on in the field. It requires considerable 
skill to load hay or grain (especially if long) so it 
will pitch off easily and well with a fork, and at best 
it usually takes longer to clean up the last end of a 
load than to get off the first three-quarters of it. 
Furthermore, it requires much more horse power to 
loosen a forkful from the load, no matter how skill¬ 
fully it may have been loaded, than to raise it. When 
slings are used, each draft being separated by the 
ropes from the rest of the load, no pulling loose is re¬ 
quired, and therefore no more power is used than just 
enough to raise the draft. No matter how carelessly 
or rapidly a load is put on to the slings each slingful 
comes off just as easily—and a 10-year- 
old boy can handle them. When the 
last sling goes up from each load the 
rack is clean, and usually but very little 
on the floor. Occasionally of course 
some will go on to the floor, but we 
often draw all day without needing to 
clean up the floor more than once. 
Our slings lock together in the center, 
and are unlocked by the man on the 
mow by pulling a small rope that hangs 
down from the sling. When the slings 
are laid in the load the end of this trip 
rope is at the back end of the load. 
One Summer a small boy from the city 
was with us, and seeing two small ropes 
in a load of hay that was standing on 
the barn floor, proceeded to try to pull 
them out. He did not get the ropes, 
but he succeeded in unlocking the slings' 
which fact we did not discover until we 
tried to unload, when the slings went 
up and the hay staid on the wagon. In 
any trouble of that kind it takes longer 
to get matters right again than with a 
fork, for the load must be pitched off 
by hand, or a sling laid on the floor 
and loaded. With the slings we can un¬ 
load bound grain or corn fodder equally 
well, which cannot be done with a fork. 
We consider it easier to mow hay or 
grain from the slings than from a fork, 
and it pitches out of the mow much 
easier. Two horses must be used on 
the draft rope, as one could not draw 
up the heavy drafts. I am positive that 
we have many times drawn up a half 
ton at a time. We do not intend to 
load a sling so heavily, but it sometimes 
occurs. 
There is a brake on my car which 
I consider a great advantage, for if a sill 
hook pulls out, or pulley or rope breaks 
the car holds the draft so it cannot fall 
back on to the wagon. When the car 
returns with the empty slings and strikes the catch 
bolt on the track, the brake is released and the sling 
is easily pulled down to the wagon. I can start my 
car oil on the track when the draft is at any desired 
height, pulling a small rope that is attached to the 
catch bolt on the track. In a high barn this arrange¬ 
ment saves much time and travel for the team before 
the mow gets high. I he last load drawn at night is 
often left on the wagon, and in the morning when the 
help was at something else I have many times put a 
load in a mow at the end of a long barn, alone. First 
hook a sling on to the pulleys on the draft rope, drive 
your team until the draft is over the mow where 
wanted, and get your team back again ready for the 
next start. Get up on to the mow, and trip the sling 
and mow it away, go back to the wagon and pull 
down the empty sling (I have a weight that pulls the 
car back over the load), hang it on the rear standard 
ready for the field, hook up the next sling and drive 
your team again. As you have only two or three 
drafts on each load, it takes a short time to put a 
load anywhere you wish. With a boy or girl to drive 
team the unloading of course is quicker, and with a 
second boy on the load to hook up the slings one man 
can unload quickly. The slings cannot be used on an 
ordinary car. As the drafts are large, more room is 
‘The; rural, nrw-yorker 
needed to get them up to the mow than is necessary 
when using a fork. I unload everything from floor 
at center of the barn, and can fill a mow, I think, as 
full as with a fork. I use a 14-foot rack. By using 
a shorter rack, and consequently shorter slings, a 
little less room would be required. 
I have a car and ropes complete in each end of the 
barn, so that when wishing to change from unloading 
on one side to the other, all the change necessary to 
be made in the barn is to take down a pulley that 
hangs on the track over one side of the floor and hang 
up another one over the other side. Through this 
pulley runs the small rope that pulls the car back to 
(he catch bolt, over the load. The change can be made 
very quickly with a long pole, without climbing up to 
the track. My track is solid maple 3$4x4 inches. Two 
2x4 scantlings make a good, inexpensive track, and one 
that is easily put up. The under half may be soft 
wood. I have never used an iron track,' but think I 
would prefer wood. 
When drawing barley we use only two slings in a 
load, and if unloaded on to a mow near the floor so a 
man can get from load to mow and back quickly, one 
man can unload and mow away a load in ten or twelve 
minutes easily. One of your men drives a load to the 
barn, gets off his load and hitches team to the draft 
rope. While he was doing this you have been on to 
the load and hooked the ring at each end of the sling 
to a hook on a pulley on the draft rope, and stepped 
over on to the mow.- He draws the loaded sling on to 
the mow; when you pull the trip cord to unload the 
sling, step back on to the load and have the other 
sling hooked up while your driver is coming back 
with his team. He draws up the second (and last) 
draft on to the mow, which you leave hanging on the 
track. You throw an extra sling into his wagon in 
place of the one now hanging on the track, and in four 
or five minutes from the time he unhitches from the 
wagon lie can be hitched on again ready to start for 
the field. As soon as you put the extra sling in the 
wagon you begin mowing away the first sling load, 
and when ready for it trip the sling hanging on the 
track and mow that away. Unless you have several 
teams drawing to keep you busy, you will have time 
in the course of the day to do a whole lot of hoeing 
in the garden, between loads, if you stay to do the un¬ 
loading and mowing away. Several years ago we 
were one day drawing with two teams a field of heavy 
clover that was in fine condition. Night came before 
we had finished, and we left two loads in the field. 
We had rain before morning, and for several days 
following, and the hay left in the field was worthless 
before it could be drawn. By reason of the time 
saved us by the use of the slings we secured more hay 
503 
than we could possibly have done with a fork, and I 
think the unloader paid for itself twice over in that 
one day’s work. I will finish my story as we do our 
harvest, by putting a sling around the hay rack and 
drawing it up in the barn as far as it will go, to be 
left there until again needed; first taking the precau¬ 
tion, however, to remove the trip rope from the sling 
so that no city youngster can experiment with it and 
bring a hay rack down upon his mischievous little 
head. l. l. woodford. 
Onondaga Co., N. Y. 
CULTIVATION IN SEMI-ARID REGIONS. 
Mr. C. P. Dodson, formerly a resident of Saline Co., 
now farming in west central Nebraska, in response to 
an inquiry as to how the farm crops are standing the 
dry Spring, writes that on his own farm the wheat 
ground was plowed in the month of August, and was 
occasionally harrowed to conserve the soil moisture, 
until time to drill in the wheat in the latter part of 
September. Having conserved sufficient moisture to 
sprout his wheat, he secured a good stand, and his 
wheat went into the Winter in good order. The crop 
has endured the dry Winter weather and is now in 
very promising condition. He stated, however, that 
he could not say as much for his neighbors, since 
their crops, handled in the ordinary way, with no 
special effort made to conserve moisture, in many 
cases were not looking well, and 
there was a possibility of loss, should 
the season be dry. This illustrates 
what has been brought out many times 
before, that the farmer who handles a 
small farm in the best possible manner, 
applying to it all the work which skill 
and care dictates, may very readily 
grow more bushels of corn and grain 
than his neighbor grows on twice the 
area. The better farming on the smaller 
area required less days’ work and less 
expense than the less careful methods 
of work applied on twice the area. 
Up to May 1 we had cultivated our 
orchards three times over. A portion of 
the work has been done with a disk, but 
the major portion of it with the Acme 
pulverizer. In this way, we plan to 
minimize the loss of soil moisture. We 
have had during the past Winter nearly 
three months of bare ground. The 
ground in our orchards has been cov¬ 
ered but a small portion of the time 
with snow. There has, therefore, been 
considerable evaporation in progress 
during the months of December, Janu¬ 
ary and March. By the law of transpo¬ 
sition of moisture, any evaporation from 
the surface sets up a drain on the moist¬ 
ure stored in the lower subsoil. We 
have, therefore, been losing a consid¬ 
erable portion of the subsoil moisture, 
which was fairly abundant last Decem¬ 
ber. Unless we conserve such moisture 
as we now have, with extreme care, we 
are liable to find our overladen trees suf¬ 
fering from lack of sufficient moisture 
to carry the crop through the months of 
August and Spetember. It is with this 
thought in mind that we are trying to 
conserve all we can of the Winter and 
frost moisture. We are applying 3,000,000 
pounds of manure, the stable litter as 
a mulch under the branches, the finer 
portions of stock-yard manure between the rows where 
it can be cultivated in. We are also using something 
like 500 loads of straw With the combined help of 
the straw mulching, the surface manuring and the 
frequent cultivation, we are hoping to carry our or¬ 
chards safely through the season. 
The farmer who has a small family orchard is in 
far better position than the commercial orchardist to 
withstand the dry seasons. The average farmer has an 
ample supply of straw which he can utilize as a 
mulch about the trees, and he can also make heavy 
applications of stable manure, while the commercial 
orchardist has trouble in finding enough manure and 
straw within hauling distance to give such measure of 
protection as should be easy for the average farmer. 
Nebraska. _ e. f. Stephens. 
You never can tell what you will strike. We wanted 
to he particularly agreeable to a man, and told him we 
would like to fill him on good baked apples. Think of 
this jar in reply: “I fail to understand why you threaten 
to load me up with baked apples. I never could eat 
them with relish; nor have I been a dutiful masticator 
of the uncooked fruit. Eve got into trouble and out of 
Paradise through a single raw apple; were you to load me 
up on the baked article might not I suffer a foretaste of 
the ‘other place’ whence came the tempter looking for 
some one whom he might make devour (apples) ?” At 
least we know what variety this man has been pestered 
with. 
