Stacking Hay
Field stacking
cut out days hauling hay in the short haying season. Farmers built big stacks of
hay in their fields or hay meadows. The literature on haymaking repeatedly
emphasized the importance of building good stacks, as hay spoiled whenever rain
or moisture penetrated the stack. To minimize seepage, farmers built the stack
layer by layer, carefully positioning each forkful of hay by hand. The hay had
to be packed most tightly in the centre of the stack, and less so towards the
outside. The centre of the stack was also kept higher than the outside edges. A
loosely packed layer of breadloaf-shaped stack: the higher it was, the less
chance of moisture penetrating its interior.
Numerous
machines could be used for making hay stacks. One of the cheapest and simplest,
particularly well suited for upland hay or fescues in Alberta's parkland, was
the pushpole stacker. A homemade slide made out of lumber was placed against the
foundation of the stack. A team of horses pushed loads of hay up the slide onto
the stack using a pushpole type of sweep
rake. The farmer then backed up the
team and sweep and went for another load of hay, while the crew packed and
positioned the load on the stack. As the stack built up, the slide was moved
along, allowing the crew to build a long stack. The advantage of this system was
that the equipment could be built on the farm, but the disadvantage lay in the
limited height the stack could attain.
A technique
requiring slightly more expensive equipment and more manpower, but suitable for
haying in many different areas, was the use of a sweep rake in combination with
an overshot stacker. The hay was swept up with a sweep rake and deposited on
the forks of the overshot stacker. The forks of this stacker were mounted at the
end of two long arms that were in turn hinged to another frame placed vertically
against the hay stack. A pulley and cable system powered by horses raised the
arms and their attached forks up and over the top of the stack dumping the load.
Alberta farmers were in the forefront in the development of these overshot
stackers. Although it also had to be moved forward as the stack built up, the
overshot stacker was generally considered superior to slides because it allowed
much taller stacks to be built. Overshot stackers were a common sight on Alberta
farms until the 1950s.
Judy Larmour. Making Hay While the Sun Shone: Haying in Alberta Before 1955. n.p.: Friends of
Reynolds-Alberta Museum Society and Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism, Historic Sites and Archives Service, 1992. With permission from
Friends
of the Reynolds-Alberta Museum Society.
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