The
illustration on the right shows a horse hay rake which has been
converted to be pulled by a tractor.
The purpose of the hay rake was to gather
the crop of hay after it had been dried by sun and wind so that
it could be built into bart's (Rounded conical heaps)
The driver sat on the seat steering the horse,
when the rake was gathering hay the curved tines were down, when
the tines were full of hay he pulled a lever which engaged a pawl
in the ratchet, which can be seen in the right wheel in the illustration,
this raised the tines which allowed the depositing of the hay into
a pile, after which the tines dropped again gathering the next pile.
These machines seen service on Irish farms,
in some cases long after the era of the horse, many were converted,
as our example illustrates, to be drawn by tractors and used to
put crops in rows for the pickup bailer which probably came into
use in the mid 1950's
The
illustration on the right shows a horse hay rake which has been
converted to be pulled by a tractor.