Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-08-06
Making Hay Without Sunshine.

Foggy, cloudy, showery, rainy England
has invented--for necessity is the mother OF
process Of hay-making without
sunshine The London Times commends 1t,
and of course it must be good-ior English
men. We, however, in our our clearer skies
and hotter sun, can dispense with artificial
heat as both too cumbersome and too expen-
sive for us. With the thermometer in the
nineties, artificial heat is at a discount. We
can get kiln dried hay an naturel under such
condition Of things. The clerk Of the
weather attends to that for us here. No
need Of patent, back action, self-regulating,
automatic, combination hay.drier. To talk
of introducing such a fiery element into our
blsteriug hay fields would drive our farmers
mad. A peripatetic vender of such "gim-
crack" machine would, on q sweltering July
day in one of our burning Vermont valleys,
be in danger Of being mobbed. He would
be strongly reminded of the condition of
things described by the poet Holmes in his
"Hot Season."
When soon the people could not bear
The slightest hint Of hre.
AllusiOns To cAlOric drew
flood Of savage ire
And all about the warehouse steps
We're angry men In dr0ves,
Crashing aud splinterlng through the doors
To smash the patent stoves
But, after all, we do now and then have a
cloudy day in haying. There have been
known, even in this favored cline, days and
days together when there was no more sun
than in Tom Hoods November" Every
farmers boy ten years old can remember OF
having seen, at some time in his youthful
experience, good crop of rowen growing
around the standing hay cocks, through 4
"long spell Of weather." You very likely
will not have to 60 back many years yourself
in your own recollection, to remember thu
same state of things. You put the hay
was on the home lot and the best you had
over in the old cow,shed, and said yol
guessed it would do for the young stock Il
nibbe on at noon, and you could use what the,
left, for bedding. That hay would have beef
saved with patent hay-drier. Then, too, eve
when the weather is about at its best, it |
sometimes treacherous and the gloriousl
hot forenoon may be followed by drenchinI
showers in the afternoon. The patent hay
drier on such days would be a welcome ad
ditiou to the machines Of the hay feld-bu
for the need of saamander men to tend It
The man who handles red.hot iron and pour
molten lead down his throat at the circus
would be the sort of man for this business.
But hay-drying machines are not likely
be used very extensively, in this country
Still there are practicable plans for aiding
by artificial methods, the curing OF hay
, bad weather. have derived great benell
, in haying, from large shed, 45x5O fec
D attached to my barn, where l could p'
t several loads Of hay that were not dry enoul
for the great bay 2Ox5O feet. This pa
tally cured hay could sometimes lie sever
days in this large, roomy and well'ventilat'
s building, being stirred meanwhile occasional
d until it was ct for the bay, when it "
= msved along into that receptacle, and t
. space left free for another batch when oeC
sion should require 1t, lhave found old ha
too, good helper in drying the now.
', never hesitated to put into the barn load
% pretty green hay, if l could have, handy