F 
Cut For Number “One” 
Produce Better Hay By Harvesting at the Right Time 
T he United States 
grades for timothy 
hay are numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 
sample. When we stop to consider the 
difference in market price for these 
various grades it would seem that farm¬ 
ers should get busy and produce better 
hay or get out of the business. All the 
large terminal market reports show 
that No. 1 hay brings at least two dol¬ 
lars more per ton than No. 2, and in 
many smaller markets the difference 
is as much as three to five dollars pei; 
ton. As we go down the scale from 
No. 1 to sample, the difference in price 
is relatively much greater, and in fact 
the lower 
By L. A. DALTON 
reached. Grades, time 
of cutting, and color 
percentages are shown in the accom¬ 
panying table: 
The table shows that in order to 
get No. 1 hay, timothy must be cut in 
full bloom. Farmers who have large 
acreages should begin to harvest the 
hay so that most of it will be cut at 
this stage rather than later, which is 
the usual custom and having most of 
it fall into grades 3 and 4. The writer 
saw thousands of acres of hay last 
season ithat was not cut until the seed 
was shattering from the head, and the 
leaves were all brown and falling off, 
amsmmmmm 
grades are 
hardly salable 
at any price. 
No. 1 hay is the 
grade that is 
mostly in de- 
m a n d to-day 
and there is 
less of it pro¬ 
duced for mar¬ 
ket than any 
other except 
possibly No. 4. 
This is shown 
by the “Market 
R e p 0 r t e r,” 
which states 
that out of 387 
cars of hay in¬ 
spected during 
March; 3 per¬ 
cent was No. 1, 
33 per cent No. 
2, 60 per cent 
No. 3, 1 per 
cent No. 4, and 
13 per cent 
sample. Please 
notice that 64 
per cent, or al¬ 
most two-thirds 
were of the 
lower grades, 
Nos. 3, 4 and 
sample, which 
The sample on the left shows timothy in 
bloom, the time to cut for No’. 1 hay. On 
the right are mature timothy heads, 
shattering, which, cut at this stage make 
No. 4 hay 
brought from seven to fifteen dollars 
per ton less than No. 1. 
Only 6 per cent of the certificates 
issued under federal grades showed as 
much as 5 per cent of weeds and other 
foi'eign material. Of the hay made 
sample grade, less than 8 per cent was 
due to the presence (>f 25 per cent or 
more foreign material, the amount 
necessary to throw the hay into sample 
grade accoi’ding to United States 
standards. Therefore, if, out of this 
very large amount of low grade hay, 
there was a relatively small percentage 
of weeds and foreign material, cutting 
at the wrong time and bad conditions 
such as objectionable odor, mold, must, 
moisture, or heating must have been 
largely responsible for the low grades. 
thus producing 
a hay that to¬ 
day does not 
have a value 
that would war¬ 
rant hauling to 
market. There¬ 
fore, it is stand¬ 
ing in the barns 
where it will 
stay or be fed to 
cows. 
There are 
thousands of 
tons of timothy 
hay stored at 
the present time 
in central New 
York, of such 
low quality that 
dealers will not 
buy it. Central 
New York is one 
of, if not the 
leading, timothy 
hay producing 
areas in the 
c o u nt r y, but 
dealers in that 
region state that 
No. 1 hay can 
hardly be found; 
indeed not 
enough to sup¬ 
ply the demand 
Therefore, they 
are combing Ohio and Michigan for the 
better grades. The extra freight rates 
from points in these States over central 
New York points to the eastern hay 
markets would mean in many cases the 
difference between profit and loss. 
For Milk or Market 
When presented with the facts above, 
many producers console themselves by 
saying they are not raising hay fo^^ 
market, but for home feeding, princi¬ 
pally for milch cows. A very good ex¬ 
cuse but no argument. The fact of the 
business is that thousands and thou¬ 
sands of tons of New York hay are put 
upon the market annually and at pres¬ 
ent at least, most of it is of the lower 
grades. But even though it is fed on 
Timothy Maximum 
Clover 5% 
U. S. No. 1. 
U. S. No. 2. 
U. S. No. 3, 
U. S. No. 4. 
U. S. Sample.. 
Latest Time of 
Cutting 
In full bloom. 
Half seed in dough. 
2/3 seed mature. 
More than 2/3 seed mature 
Maximum Percentage of 
Brown Leaf 
Surface 
40 
70 
90 
100 
Brown or 
Bleached Heads 
2 
10 
35 
100 
Bleached or Off- 
Colored Stems 
5 
20 
50 
100 
Hay of the class or sub-class not coming within the requirements of 
any of the numerical grades or which has been threshed or con¬ 
tains 25 per cent or more of foreign material or has any ob¬ 
jectionable odor, or is heating, moldy or musty, or is other¬ 
wise of distinctly low quality. __ 
Although weeds, foreign material 
and kinds of plants in the mixture have 
soniething tq do with ‘the grades, it is 
arid should be generally recognized that 
color is the pre-eminent factor that 
sells hay, and due to this the United 
States grades are based almost entirely 
upon this factor. By careful analysis 
of a very large number of samples of 
different grades, percentages of brown 
leaf surface were determined of hay 
cut at different times or stages. A 
direct correlation between brown leaf 
surface and stage of maturity was 
found. Cutting hay in the “first” or 
“second,” “blow” or “bloom,” is like 
planting corn “in the moon”; there is 
nothing to it. Corn should be planted 
in the ground and hay should be cut 
when a certain stage of development is 
the farm that produces it, experi¬ 
ments show that much greater feeding 
value and only slightly less yield are 
obtained when the hay is cut from in 
full bloom to beginning of dough stage. 
Besides, timothy is not, under any con¬ 
dition, a suitable roughage for milk 
production. Milk producers trying to 
grow their own roughage might better 
produce No. .1 timothy hay for market 
and buy clover or alfalfa from their 
neighbors if they can’t raise these 
legumes. 
Although there are some excuses, 
such as weather, shortage of labor, etc., 
for producing low grade hay; there are 
no sane arguments for it, especially 
when the demand is for the best and 
there are definite standards to go by 
to produce hay of the highest quality. 
i i uiiiiiiiimww 
«»Uili[iiuimmiwm 
Thresh Your Own Grain with a 
New Racine Thresher 
E very day you have to wait for the threshing crew 
after your grain is ready to thresh is likely to mean 
a big loss. Grain left in the shock is subject to 
shattering by wind and storm, will sprout if it is wet, 
the birds and insects destroy it, and the shocks are 
often blown down. 
Very few, if any, of these losses are necessary. With 
your own small thresher you can thresh when your 
grain is ready—no delays, no losses from rain, wind, 
birds, and insects. You can thresh with your own help 
or exchange men with a near neighbor. With the grain 
threshed early you can sell it when the market is best 
and at the same time you have the added advantage 
of having your fields clear¬ 
ed early for pasture or 
plowing. 
A New Racine 20 x 32 
or 24 X 40 thresher is the 
machine you want. It can 
be operated with the aver¬ 
age 20 to 30 h. p. farm 
tractor. 
Talk to the McCormick'Deering dealer 
about New Racine Threshers! 
International Harvester Company 
€06 SO- Michigan Ave. 
OF AMERICA 
ONCORRORATCO> 
Chicago. Ilw.. 
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