Two or three hours behind the tedder start the rake and keep it going regardless of the noon hour, and unless the hay is very heavy it may be put into small cocks, this to be completed before the dew forms. In humid regions, hay is cured best and with greatest safety by the use of hay-caps, and these should be put on the cocks also before the dew forms, and removed each morning. The hay may be left in these cocks for four or five days, as found necessary, and then stacked or stored in the barn. This may not follow, however, unless the weather is favorable. Many prefer to leave the hay in the windrows until the second morning, turning them by hand or otherwise before noon and putting into cocks in the afternoon, letting these stand for two or three days. If it is left in the cocks over three days, they should be moved or the plants under them will be smothered. All agree that alfalfa should not lie in the swath over two or three hours. Most who have ever used a tedder like it if the alfalfa is less than half in bloom. If half or more in bloom, the tedder may cause the breaking off and loss of many leaves. Most experiment stations recommend that the hay be put into small cocks on the day of the cutting, if the weather is at all fair, not risking it in the windrows over night. It is a fact that cocked green alfalfa, even without caps, will shed much rain, while when fairly well-cured it will not do so. A Colorado farmer reported that he started the mower one morning as soon as the dew was off, followed it with the tedder one hour later, and with the rake one hour behind the tedder; he kept a force of men only two hours behind the rake putting the alfalfa, yet quite green, into small cocks. These stood through two days of heavy rain. Later the cocks were opened and found to be unharmed, and after one day the hay was put into stacks in excellent condition. This was a somewhat unusual circumstance, surely, and might not often occur in a climate less dry than that in some parts of Colorado. A grower in southern Kansas, however, who harvests about one thousand tons of alfalfa per year, and is working with it nearly every day from the second week in May until November 10, insists that alfalfa, under the same conditions of rainfall, is much easier to save in fair feeding condition than red clover. He finds the side-delivery rake especially excellent for turning over the green or wet windrows to the sun and air with the least loss of leaves, and cured thus, after being wet, the natural color is better preserved. “That alfalfa hay has a higher feeding value than almost any other, even when saved under the most unfavorable circumstances, should be impressed upon the inexperienced.” THE USE OF HAY-CAPS