KANSAS FARM LIFE IN THE 40'S - HAYING

My first recollection of putting up hay was in 1945, when I was 6 years old. This date sticks in my mind because my mother was in the Winfield hospital. My Dad was going to take my sisters and I to see our baby brother. It had rained that morning and the ground was slick. My Dad was riding a horse at a gallop down the lane from our barn; the horse slipped, and fell on my Dad’s ankle, breaking it. I have no recollection what happened to get him help.
I do remember a few days later, he had a cast on and was using crutches. Early one morning, looking at our hay meadow, I saw a least three teams, pulling hay mowers and cutting the grass in our meadow. One of the teams was our closest neighbor, Clarence Westbrook, (Norma Knowles father, Jolene Sartin, (Westbrook) grandfather) one team was mules, which would have been Earl Coil, (Maxine Coil’s, class of 56, Dad) and the other was probably Ed Foltz. Seeing neighbors willing to pitch in and help other neighbors in time of need, left a lasting impression on this young mind. They volunteered their help, expecting nothing in return. They and I am sure other neighbor’s helped, mowing the meadow, raking, bucking and stacking the hay. All this was done with horse and manpower.
As I recall my first job in the haying process, was bucking the hay. After the grass was mowed, it was left to dry (cure) for a few days. It was then raked into wind rows, a long line of raked dry grass. It would then be bucked to the haystack. The buck was configured different than most other horse drawn implements. The buck was probably 10 to 12 feet wide. It had wooden runners, sometimes with metal attachments on the tips. The runners were a few inches apart. On each side of the row of runners was a tongue that was attached to the harness of a horse. A seat was on the back and in the middle of the buck. The person sitting on the seat held a harness rein from each horse. By pulling on the left or right rein, would guide the horses in the direction you wanted to go.
By directing the horses down a wind row, the hay would accumulate as the runners sled along on the ground. Sometimes the runners would hit a partially imbedded rock, causing the back of the buck to flip up, unseating the person on the seat.
When there was a full load of hay on the buck, the horses would be driven to the place where they were stacking the hay. By backing the horse up, the load of hay would be left by the stack. The hay would be pitched up on the stack by using pitchforks. Someone on the stack would place the hay around the top of the stack, building it higher and higher, thus the name “hay stack”.
We switched from stacking hay to baling hay. The first hay baler was long and heavy. (Time has faded my memory of the names of many of the baler components.) It had iron wheels and horsepower was used to move and operate it. The baler was centrally located in the hay meadow. The iron wheels where removed with the baler setting on the axels. The front of the baler had a long metal guide that was low enough for horse to step over. Inside the guide was a long metal rod that was attached to a plunger that pushed the hay through the baler. A team of horses was hooked to a metal rod with the horses walking in a circle. The metal rod in the guide was geared so that the rod would go back and forth, pushing the plunger in and pulling it out.
My job was bucking hay to the baler. A pitchfork was used to pitch the hay into a wide funnel shaped opening. A “horse head shaped part” was geared and attached to the rod that pushed and pulled the plunger in and out. When the “horse head” went up, a pitchfork of hay was placed in the opening. When the “horse head” came down it pushed the hay in front of the plunger, which compressed and pushed the hay through the back of the baler. The placing of a wooden block separated the bales. The wooden block was placed in a holder. A part of the “horse head” was a v-shaped metal piece that when the “horse head” came down, if a block was in the holder, the block would be pushed down, dividing the hay into bales.
The back of the baler had an upper and lower guide, the distance being the width of the bale. The length was the length of two to three bales. The compressed hay being pushed through the back was open on each side. The wooden block had two grooves on each side. A person sat on each side of the baler. Baling wire, with an eye on one end and cut to the length of a bale, came in a tube. The person (1) sitting on the left pulled the wire out of the tube, placing the end of the wire without the eye through the grooves in the wooden block. The person (2) on the other side placed and pushed the wire through the block grooves on the other end of the bale. Person (1) would place the wire end through the wire eye and wrap it around the wire “tying” the bale. The tied bales were pushed out the back of the baler and another person stacked the bales, which were placed on a horse drawn trailer and hauled to the barn. This haying process was as labor intensive as stacking but much more convenient for feeding.
The next haying method I recall was the transition from horsepower to tractor power. Many of the horse drawn implements were converted to be pulled by a tractor, The tongue was cut down to be shorter and attachments bolted to the tongue that would enable the implement to be hooked to the draw bar of the tractor. The hay mower and rake were adapted to be pulled by the tractor.
The major change was the tractor drawn hay baler would pick up the hay in the wind row. This eliminated the hay bucking process. The first tractor drawn baler I remember, still required two men sitting on seats on the rear of the baler, tying the bales. The bales coming out the back of the baler would be scattered around the meadow. Sometimes a wooden sled would be attached to the rear of the baler. A man would ride on the sled and stack the bales on the sled. The sled had an open space in the middle, running the length of the sled. When several bales were stacked on the sled, a crow bar would be stuck into the ground through the open sled space, causing the bales to be slid off the rear of the sled. The many small stacks of bales scattered around the meadow would be picked up with a trailer and hauled to the barn. I also recall a trailer being attached to the rear of the baler and the bales stacked on the trailer.
Near the end of my “haying days”, we acquired mowers; win row rakes and self-tying balers designed for tractors. In a time period of less than ten years the haying process drastically changed. From labor intensive to a one-man operation.
While growing up on a farm I never appreciated the farm life and my ambition was “not to be a farmer”. In retrospect I am very thankful that I was raised on a farm. During my farm youth, I had the honor of being in the presence and observing two great men. One was my Dad, Cecil Metcalf and my uncle Art Metcalf. (Father of Artie and Wayne). Together they rented farmland, purchased equipment, helped each other and had great respect for one another. I never heard a derogatory comment, a disagreement, or foul language. To my knowledge they never tried tobacco or alcohol. They were the most honest and moral men I have had the privilege to know. Great role models.