Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 2, 1802).djvu/474

442&#93; 442] HAY case two men, each of -whom is provided with a pitch-fork, cany the small coCks between them suc- cessively to the place where the tret in p-cochs are to be raised. The advantages attending this method ?re : ! . That the labour is consi- derably shortened ; 2. That the hay continues almost as green as when it was first cut, and that it jetains its natural juices in the greatest perfection ; whereas, by spreading it out, tedding it in the s«n, kc. it becomes bleached, its sap exhales, and it is frequently much damaged by the rain. Par- ticular care, however, ought to be taken, that the grass be perfectly dry when first piled up into cocks : for, if it be in the least degree wet, it will speedily become mouldy, clog together so closely as to be impervious to the air, and never dry, unless it be spread out in the sun. To prevent such an accident, Dr. Anderson directs the cutting of the grass to be commenced dur- ing fine, settled weather in the morning, and not to suffer the hay- makers to tocch it, till the dew be evaporated. In the 28th vol. of Annals of Agriculture, we meet with a com- munication from Da v in Barclay, E*-q. of WalthamstoWj Essex, who has employed Dr. Anderson's method of ma! ing hay with sue- but, instead of conveying the hay by hand to the stack, he caus- tl.f bottom of a large cock, and to be drawn by a horse to the stack, while a man fixes a pitch-fork in the opposite side, and thus pushes ock. Dr. Darwin proposes a middle way to be adopt* d between the different methods practised in HAY the North and South of Britain. If the swath of cut grass be turned over only once in the course of a day, for three or four days, the in- ternal parts of it become in a man- ner dried in the shade ; and, if it be afterwards spread over the ground only for a few hours in a fine day, he believes the hay would become .sufficiently dry to be stack- ed. He strongly recommends the grass to be thrown into small cocks at night, especially 1 if the weather be damp, to prevent it from being injured by the excrements and slime from the vast numbers of worms, which rise out of the ground during warm moist nights. For this reason, the hay-cocks ought to be made as high in proportion to their base as possible, that a less surface may be in eontacl with the ground, while the broader top is exposed to the aftion of the air, by which the exhalation of its moisture is accelerated, and the hay itself is secured from accidental showers. In wet seasons, Dr. Darwin thinks the best method is to turn the swaths every day, or every other day, or make them into small cocks ; thus to secure the whole from the injuries of inces- sant rains j and also to prevent the parts next the ground, as well as in the middle, from fermenting and putrifying. When the weather be- comes more favourable, the. hay may be made into large cocks, so that the perflation of the atmos- phere will not only cause its mois- ture to exhale the more quickly; but an incipient fermentation will discharge a portion of heat, and thus contribute to dry the hay, by increasing the evaporation : in a similar manner, the remarkable heat generated iu hay - stacks, finished
 * art rope to be fixed round