Hay - Not to be sneezed at!

By Al Lowe
Contributor

The early summer is the time when farmers are cutting hay and putting it up for future use. You can see the big round bales in the fields as you drive by. A lot of folk who have no connection with farming don't even know what hay is. When I have said "No, that's not hay, that's straw," I have often drawn a surprised reply "What's the difference?"
Hay is actually one of the most valuable and important crops of the U.S. and Canada. Hay is largely what keeps our cattle (and horses) going in the winter time.
Hay may be made up of grass, or a mixture of grasses, or legume plants, or more likely, a mixture of both. For you metropolitan people, when you drive along a country road, you can see many fields with tall grasses and other plants in June and July. When these reach a certain degree of maturity then they are ready to be cut. The hay is allowed to dry for a while, and then is formed into bales.
More and more, the machines which handle hay are large. They roll the hay into those big cylindrical bales you can see in the fields. Some folk still use the machines which put up hay in little rectangular bales. But you can be sure that no one does it the old-fashioned way, with forks and manpower, any more.
The popular forage (or hay) grasses in the Northeastern part of this continent are the bluestems, orchard grasses, brome, timothy, etc. Many of these are 'cool-season' grasses which thrive well in areas like Northwestern Ontario, and can stand the winters. Some have been introduced from Siberia and parts of Africa. Timothy, a primary hay grass for many years, came to us from Europe nearly 300 years ago.
There are many legume plants which make excellent pasture and hay crops. Alfalfa, trefoil, the clovers are the major ones for our northern areas. These plants almost all have very deep roots, and are adapted to a wide variety of soils and weather.
Sometimes, in Northern Ontario, we get only one crop of hay, but with a really good season, we may get two really good crops.
Now, how many of you old-timers remember the old days of haying? The rush to get the dry hay into the barn before the rain came. The men forking the hay way up into the wagons. The teams of big Clydesdales or Percherons straining at those heavy loads, or pawning and snorting at the flies.
How about those poor fellows up in the hayloft, who had to 'mow' the hay back to get ready for the next load. And this was done from dawn till dusk, all in 95 degree heat!
And those were the 'good old days'?