The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1904-08-13
HAY CROP OF NEW YORK.
Value of the Harvest in the City Alone
Is Estimated at Fifty Thou
sand Dollars.


New York city's hay crop, public and
private, which is now being harvested,
must be worth fully 6 million CT dol
lars.
The city alone harvests hay from the
many hundred acres of park land, and
the crop must be worth at least $4,000.
though the park department receives
no such price for it, says the Sun.
All v e the upper part of The Bronx
and in other semi-rural boroughs, es-
pecially the boroughs of Richmond and
Queens, haying occupies a considera-
BILE number of the inhabitants In the
last week Of June and the first week OIL
July. The abundant rains of some
weeks ago in effect made the crop, and
hay is running from n and a half 10
three IONS to the acre.
Haying gives the suburban regions a
new touch Of the country. Even where
there are no actual farming operations
going on there is usually some one
with a mower, often the worse for
wear, ready to cut hay for his neigh
bors.
A good deal of the city hay crop is
cut with old-fashioned instruments.
The cradle, like the horse car, has per-
sisted in New York, although it excites
ridicule in the real country. Much OF
the local hay crop is cut with scythes,
and even the sickle is occasionally
used.
1t is often hard for the local hay
| grower to find a skilled haymaker, and
wages are so high in the suburbs that
haying is not profitable. Some suburb
antics who own acres of hay finds that
it barely pays to cut and store the
crop.
For this reason most of the local
hay crop is sold standing at absurdly
low prices. Half a dozen charitable or
institutions in The Bronx, with large
grounds upon which hay grows, are
glad to turn it over to friends or neigh
bors at nominal rates.
In some such cases all sorts OF per
sons, men, ONE and children, are
pressed into service at the harvest, and
there are even cleaners, as in old
| oCllplulol lIl41SSB II AOliO" Al A@J
makers about the fields to gather a lit
tie harvest of their own. Up at Wake
field the other day there worked in a
single hay field a policeman, the wife
of a neighboring shopkeeper, several
hired haymakers and a tiny four-year-
old volunteer, a chubby. biack-eyed lit
tie girl in an immense straw hat, who
manfully turned the hay with a full
grown wooden rake.
Suburban haymaking is sometimes
made the excuse for a frolic and picnic
to which urban friends are invited
Then you may see merry girls in smart
gowns and rough straw hats playing a.
harvesting. The picnic ends in a sup.
per by moonlight among the haycocks
with a profusion of sights and sounds
and odors that create the illusion Of
the real country.
In some of the remoter parts of The
Bronx the serious hay harvest is thai
of the Stat marshes, where men witt
scythes and cradles venture far our
upon the tidal plains and gather a rank
crop, which is valued not only as {
food for beasts, but is much used By
the market gardeners Of the region fol
m%ulching.
Part of the crop is usually stored al
winter long upon bits of fast land, ant
nothing gives the wintry landscape Of
the marshes Sc warm a suggestion O.
summer as these amber mounds
smooth, soft and deliciously rich il
tone, melting into the general colorin:
of the level shorn grass.