Okay, I will try to top the sad story of bucking bales by hand: This is a question too; My family began as struggling farmers in the 50s and had a small patch of alfalfa on bottom ground; they actually cut it with scythes and loaded it loose with pitchforks. My brothers said they were happy that it was only 5 acres; they sold it loose to a local place and apparently got paid very well for it (not in bales mind you). Was it a common thing back in the 50s still to do hay by hand, or was it because dad did not know what the heck a swather or baler was? It must have tested well and tender, as mentioned before, they got paid VERY well for it, and the buyer was disappointed when they did not supply it anymore.
I was raised around tree farmers and nobody knows here. Perhaps I don't know enough OLD people either! Thx. JM.

Hi, juiceman.
I cain't help you with local prices or practices on your side of the puddle but I worked for the last family to use a reaper and binder to produced sheaved hay - 1962-64 - around the area where I was working on wheat farms straight after I left school. I can still remember how to stack it on a trailer or truck and how to stack it in a haystack to pretty much weatherproof it against even quite heavy rain.

That's at least a dying art now, maybe already gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Just my 0.02.

Juiceman I don’t quite consider myself Old yet but close, I have been around hay most of my life I know they were baling hay in the 30s mostly with pitchin hand tied balers a lot pulled with teams, most cut with horse mowers and raked with dump rakes keep in mind it was still shocked not windowed. In the 40s they started using tractor mowers and side rakes ,pickup balers came in about this time, my Dad bought a 3 wire John Deere 4 man baler during the war, didn’t like it and traded it for the first New Holland automatic baler in the Turlock Denair area 1945. I remember those Big Case 3 wires some hand tied later ones automatics being used into the early 60s. When we got the Swather in 1961 and the New Holland 99 and 290 balers after that we got some thing Done life got easier. I still have the last Horse Mower ever sold in Turlock and a IH dump rake my dad bought new. In the 40s they started cutting the tines off Jackson forks so they could pull hay up in the barns still have my dads. I hope this is not to long I can get a little carried away thinking about all of this, was a good time to be a kid , PS I used to hook the team to the mower and cut a little just to play around! 17afarmer

17AFarmer wrote:

I used to try to average about 115 pound bales with a 3 wire baler was a good solid bale, you had to be a stronger guy than me to throw them up on a truck. thank god they invented Harobeds, I have seen them do pretty good on some pretty good hills. But they did not like sand. In the mid to late 60s you could get wire for 6 to 8,to 8.50 a roll when it got to $50.00 a roll I Quit! 17afarmer

No need to quit just raise the price on the other end. Or buy a new or new to you baler and go plastic twine. The current thing is 100 lb bale less if you can keep it tight so it hauls with a Harobed. Wire is close to  a $100 a roll, twine is 40 to 50. But bales are selling for $ 25 - 35 each.


 

Ray54. By the time I quit the hay was a hit and miss thing and was not worth putting any money into, as you know things have changed so much in farming in CA. it makes it hard to compete with asphalt and almonds and the state of CA.

We coverted the balers from wire to twine for two reasons.No one wanted wire bales and the twine was a fraction the cost of wire.I think the last twine we bought was $13 a box

  Prior to 1950 and the bale being used here, a lot of those here on the prairie used the Jayhawk stacker.  The lift was powered by the wheels winding a cable on a drum as it headed with a load to the stack.   This pic came from Classic Tractor Fever.,  I still have the nameplate from an old Jayhawk stacker but that is all that is left.



 

Well 17a I know of what you speak. If I was not using most of what I grow for my cows I would probably quit too. As I am to far from town to sell a bale at a time for the horse market.

Hi, D4Jim.
Dang!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That contraption reminds me of an early LeTournoeau scraper - see photo.



The time I worked with a hay baler was in 1960. IF my memory serves me rightly, it was a V4 Wisconsin-powered HAND tie machine and I don't remember the make. What I DO remember is that the guy on the tractor managed to wipe me off my seat on the outside - left - of the baler by failing to give a wide enough berth around a power pole - didn't do the seat a whole lotta good either.

They reckon only the good die young. I musta bin BAD even back then.

Just my 0.02.

Just my 0.02.