[AT] Oliver 880 @ auction

[Larry D. Goss]

I suppose you could use that rig for stacking, but real honest to
goodness hay stackers were an overshot arrangement.  You ran around the
field with a buck rake collecting the hay and drove right up to the
stacker with a couple tons of it.  You backed up the buck rake (which
left the hay on the stacker) and then pulled the rope to lift the hay
off the field and "throw" it overhead to form the stack on the far side
of the stacker.  

The tines of the buck rake and the stacker were similar.  They were
either 2X4's or 2X6's about a foot apart and 10 or 12 feet long.  The
rake and the stacker were about 20 feet wide, and each had a backstop
about four feet high to keep the hay from coming over on the
driver/engine/horses/ etc of the buck rake and to let the load of hay
slide off the stacker at the right location after it was lifted in the
air.

The original equipment for buck rakes were a pair of horses with about
10 or 12 feet between them.  Later versions were old cars that were
converted.  You flipped the rear axle and changed the driver's controls
so that you had a rear steering vehicle that would run 30 to 40 miles
per hour around the hay field.  The rake mechanism was mounted to the
original rear frame of the car.  The rake didn't have to have much
movement.  All you had to do was lift the outer end of the tines about 6
inches so they didn't drag the ground during transport, and then tilt
them down when bucking hay.

My grandfather used his Belgians to operate the hay stacker in the early
days, but when he got the John Deere D, the Belgians got replaced by the
John Deere (sometime in the early 1920's.)  The real work and art of hay
stacking is the poor guy on top of the stack who has to move all that
hay and spread it around so that it stacks right and doesn't collapse.
Grandpa and Uncle Jim let the dairy herd forage on the hay during
winter.  I can't remember exactly how they controlled the cows. But in
the early days they didn't have any way of moving it a little at a time.
In the later years (1950's and 60's) they had a John Deere A with a rig
on it similar to the one on eBay that they could use to distribute the
hay along the feeding trough around the corral. 

It does take a dry climate to let hay stacking work best.  I asked my
Dad why we didn't stack out hay outside in Indiana the way Grandpa did
in Colorado.  He said it would rot before the cows could eat it.

Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Dudley Rupert
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:24 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: RE: [AT] Oliver 880 @ auction

The only loose hay I ever saw put up was in Illinois right after the war
where one of the farmers in our neighborhood used a straight/dump rake
to
put the mowed hay into piles, then he (and his help) pitched the hay by
hand
onto a wagon and then they used the overhead track and fork in his barn
to
lift the hay up into the mow.

So, needless to say, I've found this thread interesting and informative.
I've learned this contraption we're talking about could be called a hay
stacker and that it really does have a high lift capability.  But I am
curious, however, as to how the hay was brought in from the field to the
stacking area.  Was it brought using a wagon and then this hay stacker
unloaded the wagon and made the stack or was it some other way?

Still curious -

Dudley
Snohomish, Washington

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com]On Behalf Of
dfolske at nccray.net
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 2:15 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Oliver 880 @ auction

On 24 Jan 2005 at 15:02, Ralph Goff wrote:

>
> > The lift cylinders are the bottom tubes. They are longer than the
tractor
>
> I would guess you'd need a big oil reservoir on the tractor to operate
one
> of these loaders with those long cylinders
>
If I remember right the reservoir on the loader was about 10
gallons, maybe even 12.
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