Hay
Rake
The hay rake has gone through many changes during
the 20th century. Before the
invention of the hay rake, the job of collecting the cut, dried hay was done by
hand with hand rakes. The version of
the mechanical hay rake above is little more than a modification of the hand
rake. This version was designed to be
used with horses (although this one is equipped to pull behind a tractor) and,
of course, to rake much more hay at a time than a small hand rake. The teeth of a hand rake were replaced by
the many arching teeth on the mechanical rake.
In addition, a hand lever on the rake above or a ‘gear’ within the wheel
(in later versions) allowed the teeth to be raised to release the collected
hay. This was still a lot of work for
the farmer, but much better than the hand rake.
Photo taken about 2005
Provided by Dorothy
Bayes
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