The invention of the horse-drawn hayrake (sometimes called a buckrake) in the 1800s made collecting hay much more efficient. It could collect eight times as much as one farmhand with a rake, an eight-fold increase in output, and, importantly, meant less effort.
Essential kit
Yet another name for the hay rake was the ‘dump rake’, referring to its function of gathering the cuttings and dumping them in rows to dry off. It was first fashioned out of wood and metal with a distinctive wide body (approx. 10 to 12ft across), two very large diameter wheels and a fear-some-looking set of curved steel tines.
These implements became indispensable, and no matter who produced them were designed with few moving parts, all of them easy to maintain. They were lightly constructed and easily transported about the farm. How well rows of cut grass were aligned depended entirely on the skill of the operator and how they handled the horse or team of horses, needed to propel it along.
No mean feat
Horses were needed and the driver, once perched on a seat mountedhay, the draught load was significantly increased. Hence the need for more than one horse. The aim was to gather the crop with the tines before releasing (or dumping) it in straight lines across the hayfield. Once sufficiently dry, the crop was gathered up with pitchforks into a cart or farm waggon and led away. An alternative was to use a clever piece of kit called a Greencrop Loader to strip the field of fresh-cut grass.
