Item 1 of 1
Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982
| Play this item |  Help |
|
|---|---|---|
| Choose Format | bandwidth/file Size | |
 |
Play | 56k or higher |
 |
Play | 10 megabytes |
 |
Play | 17 megabytes |
Item Title
Cutting and Windrowing Hay with a Swather
Author/Creator
Narrator: Muceus, Annebet
Fleischhauer, Carl
Purser, Margaret, interviewers.
Created/Published
July 08,1982
Notes
Annebet Muceus cuts and windrows hay with a swather and then describes the grasses that are cut and talks about the swather.
Haymaking consists of cutting the grass or alfalfa, allowing the plants to cure in the sun and air, forming windrows (the latter two steps may occur simultaneously), and storing the hay. Although the underlying process has remained the same, technological changes have transformed haymaking between the postwar era and the present. The story is the same throughout American agriculture -- increased mechanization has reduced the need for labor.
The swather combines the functions of the mowing machine and the rake. It cuts the hay and lays it in rows for the baler. On the Ninety-Six, some hayfields produce a thin crop, and a "V-rake" is used to pull together two swather rows for the baler. Having half as many rows in the field saves time when baling, and the thicker hay forms a better bale. The rake was not in use when this footage was shot.
Ranchers in the region figure they will need one ton of hay per cow per winter. This footage was shot in 1982, after Les had reduced his herd size. A few years earlier, he had put up three thousand tons every summer, but now makes only three hundred. Les says that he can get from three to four tons of hay from an acre of good alfalfa; one or one-and-a-half tons from native grasses; and amounts between these two for mixed fields. The meadow Annebet Muceus is cutting here is a mixture of alfalfa, bromegrass, and native grasses, with only a small amount of non-nutritious bronco grass.
Annebet Muceus had been a student at the University of California at Berkeley when she moved to Lake Tahoe and subsequently to Paradise Valley. Although not a year-round, full-time worker on the Ninety-Six, she has worked there steadily since the late 1970s.
Subject
Activities
Haying
Swathers
Ethnography
Motion Pictures
Ninety-Six Ranch
Object Type
Medium
3/4 inch video
Language
English
Call Number
NV82-VT2
Digital ID
afc96ran v020
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc96ran.v020