Smell of Fresh Hay

Nothing Compares
to the Smell of Fresh Hay
If I were to ask you to describe farm smells in one word, what would you say? For many people, the answer would be stink, manure, or gross. I guess it is the eternal optimist in me that I would answer “fantastic”. To me the greatest smell I have ever encountered is newly mowed hay. Nothing compares to it including roses, lilacs or perfume at one hundred dollars an ounce.

Newly mowed hay brings me to the subject today: Dying Breeds in Agriculture. I almost died on June 5th. It was a hot day and we put up 1000 bales of hay in my barn. At 50 years of age, it is a lot harder than when I was 20. I grew up in Brown County where the only jobs for high schoolers was baling hay or working in tobacco. My first job was stacking hay on ten foot of manure in a barn on horse-shoe bend for 75 cents an hour.

Every summer I picked up bales and stacked them in a barn for a dollar an hour. I worked beside men two to three times my age getting the same pay. Try finding hay help today for any price.

Mike Pickarski and Dustin Murnahan represent a dying breed in agriculture: Hay Hands. Farmers everywhere tell me they cannot find high school boys who are willing to work hard and baling hay is hard work. Mike and Dustin have one thing in common: they play football. Mike plays for Wittenberg and Dustin plays for Northwestern. All of us have had young men show up and work a couple of hours or one day and then quit. Today, you cannot get anyone to even show up. The round baler was invented because the high school boy does not want to work hard especially in a hot hay mow with a lot of dust.

Bob Kaffenbarger tells one of the best stories to illustrate society today. He had a young man who was a good hay hand for him. Second cut was ready so he called this young man to see if he could bale hay today. The young man replied that his mother told him it was too much trouble taking him to the farm and then picking him up after work so if he would stay home she would pay him what he would make at Bob’s all day! Sad but true and employers wonder why it is so difficult to find employees who want to work and earn a day’s wage.

I salute Mike, Dustin, the Domer boys and all the others that like to bale hay. You will make great employees for someone someday.

Another dying breed is the dairy farmer. In 1940 there was 1769 farms in Clark County that had two or more dairy cows. Today that number is 12. However, only five farms ship milk and can be classified as a dairy farm – FIVE!

My last dying breed today is the famous Clydesdale draft horse. Despite the Budweiser commercials which glorify these creatures as magnificent, they have been put on the concerned list of becoming extinct. The Amish are about the only group of farmers who still use draft horses as their main source of power on the farm. Clydesdales are the smallest draft breed and since powerful is better, the Amish prefer the biggest power sources: Percherons, Belgians, and Shires. Those whose hobby is horse pulling also want the largest beast, not the small Clydesdales. A winning draft team can pull upwards of four tons of cement blocks on a sled for 13.5 feet. Clydesdales never win this game.

Back to smells. I admit I like the smell of a dairy farm. There is something about the mixture of wastewater, feed and manure that strangely enough I like. I guess I’ll always have a place in my heart for Clydesdales, Dairy farms, and hay hands.

All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin,gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status.
Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Ag. Admin. and Director, OSU Extension
TDD No. 800-589-8292 (Ohio only) or 614-292-1868

Updated: November 1999

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