422 On Making Hay.[June

is, /ays he, to make ſuch hay as will fatten, not merely keep cattle

alive; and my leaſt conſideration is the expence of doing this. Befote I begin, I always engage five good hay-makers to éach mower. On the firſt morning VP mos ing, although there is ap- parently little for them to do, Î order out my: whole frength, and fi, by a careful tedding, and, as ſoon as this is done, by an im- e turning of the graſs 5, whit it 1s tn its graſs-ſtate, this her- báge is fo wotked that ſcarcel Y any two blades of’ it can‘be found adheri ing to each other, or lying in the ſame dire&ion.‘Thus the whole is made to lie as open or hollow as poſible, and every blade 1s equa IIy expol: d to the drying efes of the ſun and air, and the colour and ſmell of the whole is, as much as poſlible, preſerved. By baving plenty of hands I can give it repeated cturnings, and[ gain nearly a whole dayin the proceſs, by work- ing it well at firſt: and thus a few ſhillings‘extra, expended at the beginning, 1s frequently the ſaving or gaining of pounds, I never ſuffer my hay to lie abroad upon thé ground after five o’clock in the Hs noon 1 when the falling of the evenings s dew commences, which is, Tam convinced, very injurious to hay.‘IT never ſuffer my bay to be touched in-the morning, till the dew has entirely difappeared. T never Pigs ny hay tozether into 2 barn'or building, but always into a rick, where, I know, it.ſettles much cloſer together, and will k= much ſweeter, and preſerve its weight much longer thän in a covered building.”

Theſe rules and regulations, Mr. Editor, althoug h they may not be new to certain of your readers, are, I afert, genuine 0a eſlential to the proceſs of making good hay; and tte man whò obſerves them not, 1s either ignorant of, or inattentive to his own intereſt. I wiſh particularly to contraſt this method with the wo very extraordinary modes, mentioned in your Magazine for April, as praiſed on the Continent. I wiſhlikewiſe to ſet it in

competition with the merhod recommended a yeär or two ago, by Mr. Wakefield, near Liverpoc E in an Eſſay tothe Society of

Arts, and for which, T am afraid, He received 2 premium from

the Society; which was nothing more or leſs than binding up oreen clover in bundles, and ſuffering them to remain anding

S carried together, or rather

on one end til] they were ready to be till the outſides of the bundles were roaſted, and their infides TOf- ten, The true principle of hay- making; ſurely, is, to'dry every particle of the hay alike, and never to luffer fermentation to take

place before the hay is colleXed in the rick. IT call upon every praical huſbandman in the kingdom, to counte rat theſe ſpurl loQtrines.

Let not the pradice of the ſloven, becauſe it bappens in one favourable ſeaſon n» be right, divert or leſſen our eſteem for ra= onal, long tried, and long approved ſyſtems of huſbandry,

I remain yours,

PRACTICUS.