* Vaughan Jones, F. W. Owen, and all; what do
* we, or does anyone on the Graze-L list,
* collectively know and / or remember about
* buck rakes, outdoor hay curing and storage,
* haystacks, hay trellis (Norwegian, Swedish)?
* Did commercial companies get into providing
* equipment for servicing this harvest
* technique? What where some of the more and
* less obvious considerations?
Hi,
The obvious consideration is that outdoor hay curing and
storage won't work in the humid northeast (of the USA)
without an impossibly prolonged string of dry weather.
It works a little better out west where it's pretty much
arid. Surely you read "My Friend Flicka"? (And
"Thunderhead" and "Green Grass of Wyoming")
Out in that part of the world they pushed the hay with a
buck rake (with horses early and later with hoopies) to the
base of an incline made from long poles. The hay was
pulled up the incline with horses and a rope and pulley
system. The hay fell off the top end of the incline into
large piles.
The last hay dumped on top made a crude cap for the bulk of
the pile. Somewhat like a the top of a strawstack (blown
from a threshing machine) keeps the straw down below dry.
The bigger piles have a smaller percentage of waste.
But it is very naive to think this would work in Ohio or
Vermont.
The only form of outdoor hay curing and temporary outdoor
storage that is somewhat reliable here is the use of "hay
cocks"
A "hay cock" is about a half of a wagon load of loose hay
pushed into a pile in the field. The piles would have been
scattered all over the hay field, not in one or two central
piles.
The theory with hay cocks is that the area of hay exposed to
the rain is greatly reduced compared to leaving it in the
swath or windrow. The hope is that it will dry faster than
it gets wet again, and that it might someday eventually be
dry enough to be hauled to the barn.
This hay cock system really doesn't work either, unless the
cocks are covered with hay caps. That usually meant a
bunch of little canvases that covered the top part of the
cock, but left the sides mostly exposed for air
circulation. There were unending problems with securing
the hay caps.
This hay cock is almost totally abandoned as it is
unreliable and extremely expensive in terms of labor. And
it was made obsolete by the newer technology....hay
ladders.
I forgot to mention that the hay cocks were sometimes
recovered from the field by parking a wagon with the back
end pointed toward the hay cock. A wood ramp was attached
to the back of the wagon (or hinged on the back). The
horses were unhitched and the hay was grappled and pulled
up on to the wagon with a long hay rope.
This hay cock system is ridiculous in light of modern
equipment. It was made obsolete with the advent of the hay
loader (or sometimes called "hay ladder). Hay ladders are
obsolete too, everywhere but Homerville where more than a
hundred are working on local farms yet today.
Hay cocks remained in use into modern times only because
they worked pretty fair for soybean hay. They were pretty
much the only way to get soybean hay cured in a humid
climate like Ohio.
There was a "sugar loaf" system devised by a short line
machinery company whose name I have forgotten (Gehl or
Brady?).
In this system, a flail chopper was combined with a
collection chamber with a curved roof. When the chamber
was full of chopped hay the whole "sugar loaf" was dropped
in the field, or other convenient storage location, where
it was supposed to shed water until it was recovered for
feeding.
That system also worked much better in the arid west but
very poorly here in the humid northeast.
This "sugar loaf" system was popular in the late 50's to mid
60's but soon passed in to history...and good ridance. It
didn't help that it seemed to appeal to the most
improvident farmer in each community. Better farmers might
have made it work.
The most common use of buck rakes in the humid northeast
part of the USA is to buck up piles of hay for burning.
Sometimes (very rarely) a impossible situation arises with
hay. If it's been rained on innumerable times, and lays in
a wet rope that even the old faithful hay tedder can't tear
apart, the only solution is to burn the evidence of
failure, so the second crop will have a chance to grow.
It this case an old buck rake might be dragged out, but much
more likely the manure fork is put on the front end loader
and the whole mess is shoved together as best as possible
and burned.
--
Kindest regards,
=======================
F. W. Owen
Owenlea Holsteins
9430 Spencer Road
Homerville, Ohio 44235
e-mail fwo@bright.net
home page http://www.bright.net/~fwo
voice & fax 330.625.2369
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