POOR STUFF
Hay dealers report that much of the baled alfalfa shipped is poor stuff. They advise small bales, weighing about sixty to eighty pounds; about 27 to 36 inches long, 14 or 15 inches thick and 18 inches high when laid on edge. They also recommend that in loading a car the bales be placed on their edges instead of on the sides, as they are less liable to heat. The problem of the city hay dealer is to sell what he has received, with satisfaction to the purchaser and profit to himself and to his client. If he receives moldy, dead hay, with little protein value, he is not able to please his customer, not able to secure a good price, and hence, not able to please either shipper or buyer. The farmer who raises and ships hay and receives two dollars less per ton for it than his neighbor, should learn by such money losses the necessity of harvesting and storing his product properly.
A. S. Hitchcock says in Farmers’ Bulletin No. 215, of the United States Department of Agriculture, that the baled hay for export to Alaska, Hawaii, and other trans-oceanic points is compressed by the process known as double compression, done with baling machines operated by electricity or hydraulic power. The hay obtained by loosening the ordinary bale is compressed into square or cylindrical packages of smaller and more compact form than the ordinary bale. The hydraulic presses used for making the round bales are similar to those used for the cylindrical bales of cotton. The measurements of the different types of double-compressed bales are about as follows: Square, 15 by 18 by 38 inches, weight 160 pounds; square bale for Alaskan trade, 14 by 18 by 26 inches, weight 100 pounds; round bale, 2 feet in diameter, 24 inches long, weight 145 pounds, or 36 inches long, weight 260 pounds. The saving of space in transit may best be understood by comparing the weight and cubic contents of baled and compressed hay. The ordinary bale occupies 140 to 160 cubic feet per ton, and round bales 55 feet per ton. The most essential point in loading new hay into a car is to see that it is not loaded flat, that is, with the flat sides of the bale up. When loaded in this way, with the smooth sides of the bales together, no space is left for air and as a consequence the hay not infrequently heats. A properly loaded car has the edges or rough sides of the bales together. This allows air space between the bales and always prevents danger of heating.
A new machine is being introduced which makes (from the windrow if desired) a cylindrical bale, with a hollow space lengthwise through its middle. This open space must undoubtedly facilitate the curing of hay baled before sufficiently dry. The machine has a capacity of four to six tons per hour, makes a bale thirty-six inches long and twenty inches or less in diameter, as desired, bound with twine, and the hay can be eaten from the bale, with a minimum of waste, without unfastening. This baler, if it justifies the claims of its inventors, should be very useful to those who grow alfalfa for marketing away from the farm.