Probably no crop grown at Hopewell Furnace was as important as hay. Hay fueled the dozen of horses which hauled the charcoal, limestone and iron ore that went into the furnace and transported to market all of the products the furnace produced.
Hay is made up of grasses and legumes (like clover). They were carefully preserved by drying to be used as feed in the winter or when the horses were too busy to graze.
Rain disrupted the drying process and leached nutrients away from curing hay. In the 1830s hay making was a time consuming chore, and it was hard to predict when a long dry stretch would occur. Furnace records are as likely to note when it was dry during hay cutting season as when it rained-- both were noteworthy.
Modern farmers use machines to gather their hay into tightly packed bales. Nineteenth-century Hopewell farmers probably put most of their hay up loose in the barn's mow where it could be pitched to the animals below. Company records show that some of the hay was gathered into stacks in the fields.
Timothy and clover were two popular varieties of hay. They remain two of the area's popular hays today.
In 1826 the furnace harvested enough hay to sell a surplus. A "load" went for forty cents, and five dollars bought either a ton or half of a stack.
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