Hay
Hay names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Hay any grass or sedge cut green and dried for forage
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
any grass or sedge cut green and dried for forage. By extension the term covers forage prepared from many other plants, as clover and alfalfa, which belong to the pea family; but it is not applied to the straw of the cereals, as oats and wheat, although they are grasses, nor to the fodder of corn, which is also a grass. Wild hay is made from native grasses growing in natural meadows. Tame hay is made usually from timothy or clover, or from both. The best advice to the haymaker is to follow the adage and "make hay while the sun shines." To secure the best quality of hay it must be cut in the blossom, dried in the sun, and stored under shelter without rainfall. A well built haystack forms a natural thatch. In many parts of the United States the entire crop, especially of wild hay, is stacked out of doors. Recent statistics put the annual cut of hay in the United States at 70,000,000 tons, worth $635,000,000 on the farm. The average yield per acre the United States over is about a ton and a quarter. Irrigated lands and river bottoms bring the largest yield. Farm prices vary exceedingly in different states. A ton of hay is worth twice as much in the Atlantic states and in the Ohio Valley as it is in the prairie region included between the dry plains and the Mississippi River. Minnesota leads in the production of wild hay; Kansas leads in millet, Hungarian grass, and Kafir corn ; Indiana leads in red clover, and California in grains cut green for forage. The total hay crop of the United States is worth more than the wheat crop, but not so much as corn. PRODUCTION OF HAY IN THE UNITED STATES. Tons Maine 1,260,000 New Hampshire 589,000 Vermont 966,000 Massachusetts 702,000 Rhode Island 90,000 Connecticut 588,000 New York 5,717,000 New Jersey 699,000 Pennsylvania 4,677,000 Delaware 125,000 Maryland 480,000 Virginia 618,000 West Virginia 899,000 North Carolina 262,000 South Carolina 81,000 Georgia 152,000 Florida 26,000 Ohio 4,590,000 Indiana 3,750,000 Illinois 4,743,000 Michigan 3,954,000 Wisconsin 3,988,000 Minnesota 1,527,000 Iowa 6,460,000 Missouri 4,350,000 North Dakota 243,000 South Dakota 765,000 Nebraska 2,348,000 Kansas 2,744,000 Kentucky 675,000 Tennessee 600,000 Alabama 176,000 Mississippi 122,000 Louisiana 31,000 Texas 1,072,000 Oklahoma 1,305,000 Arkansas 297,000 Montana 1,050,000 Wyoming 504,000 Colorado 1,675,000 New Mexico 336,000 Arizona 330,000 Utah 938,000 Nevada 400,000 Idaho 1,410,000 Washington 839,000 Oregon 828,000 California 817,000 United States . . . . . 70,798,000
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the stems and leaves of grasses 1 and other plants cut for fodder, dried in the sun, and stored usually in stacks. ! The time most suitable for mowing grass intended for hay is that in which the saccharine matter is most abundant in the plants, viz., when the grass is in full flower. For the operation of mowing, dry weather, and, if possible, that in which sunshine prevails, is chosen. Care must be taken to avoid haymaking either under a scorching sun or during the prevalence of rain, and the heaps should never be opened in the morning till the disappearance ance of the dew. dew. On large large farms the work is performed by haymakperformed ing machines in conjunction with other agricultural implements. The total hay crop in the United States for 1920 was estimated at 108,- 233,000 tons, with a farm value of $1,809,162,000, and the total acreage at 72,830,000 acres. The greatest hay producing States were New York, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and California.
Hay JOHN, an American statesman and writer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN, an American statesman and writer, born in Salem, Ind., Oct. 8, 1838. He was graduated from Brown University, and settled in Illinois as a lawyer, but went to Washington in 1861 as one of Lincoln's private secretaries, acting also as his aide-decamp. He served under Generals Hunter and Gillmore with the rank of major and assistant adjutant-general. He was subsequently in the United States diplomatic service, stationed at Paris, Vienna, and he was made ambas- Madrid. In 1897 sador to England, and in 1898 Secretary of State. His literary reputation rests upon "Pike County Ballads," the best known of which are perhaps "Little " and "Jim Bludso"; "Casti- Breeches lian Days" and "Life of Abraham Lincoln" (with J. G. Nicolay). He died July 1, 1905.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The husbandry Aiton's described in 1910 — grass cut in blossom, sun-dried, and built into a stack whose top "forms a natural thatch" — has almost vanished from commercial farms. Field stacking gave way first to the small rectangular bale and then, from the 1970s, to the big round baler and to plastic-wrapped baleage and silage, which let a crop be preserved damp and blunt the force of the old adage about making hay while the sun shines. The tonnage figures also moved: Collier's put the 1920 crop at 108 million tons on 72.8 million acres, while today the United States cuts a comparable or somewhat larger tonnage from roughly two-thirds the acreage, because yields per acre have roughly doubled from the ton and a quarter Aiton's quoted. Alfalfa, mentioned only in passing in 1910 as a pea-family extension of the term, is now the premium hay crop, while timothy has receded to horse and export markets.
Written for this edition, 2026.