[AT] Oliver 880 @ auction (hay stacking)

[Ralph Goff]

----- Original Message -----
From: Larry D. Goss <rlgoss at evansville.net>
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group' <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 11:34 PM
Subject: RE: [AT] Oliver 880 @ auction


> 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.

In the early days of farming here loose hay was the only system known. But
not with the type of machinery most of you have discussed. About the first
"farm implement" my Dad got me to drive was the old "horse rake". A two
wheeled steel tined device originally designed to pull with a team of
horses. Dad would hitch it to the Cockshutt 50 and I had the great
responsibility of riding  the rake perched up on the old iron seat with
nothing to hang on to but a lever. I learned to step on the trip pedal just
right so the tines would lift and drop the hay in a pile. I think we only
did this for one year before going to the more modern side delivery rake.
Originally all those loose hay piles from the dump rake would have to be
"coiled" by a man with a hay fork. Then picked up and loaded onto the hay
rack (again by hand with a fork) and hauled to the yard and stacked in a
spot convenient to the barn for easy feeding in the winter, where it was
handled one more time by hand with the hay fork. The old timers must have
worn out a few fork handles in their day.

Ralph in Sask.
http://lgoff.sasktelwebsite.net/