Why farmers stacked hay: a short history of the haystack

Why stack hay at all?

Grass grows in summer, but animals need to eat all year round. Farmers cut grass when it was at its best, dried it into hay, and stored it to feed cattle, horses and sheep through the winter. Before barns were big or machines could bale hay, stacking it outdoors was the way to keep a large amount in one place.

How hay was made

1. Cut the grass, once it had grown tall but before it went to seed.
2. Dry it in the sun, turning it so it dried evenly.
3. Gather it into rows and then into heaps.
4. Stack it in a large mound, built up layer by layer.

Why the shape?

Many stacks ended in a rounded or pointed top for a reason. Rain runs off a sloped roof instead of soaking in, and a tight, well-packed outer layer shed water like a thatched roof. A stack that kept its shape stayed dry inside. This is also why a well-made stack is dense and hard to pull apart, the same reason the hay in the game is solid and the needle is hidden deep in it.

A hidden danger

Hay stored while still damp can heat up inside. Tiny organisms feed on the moisture and give off warmth, and in the worst cases a stack could get hot enough to catch fire from the inside. Farmers learned to dry hay well and to watch their stacks for signs of heat. It is one of the reasons hay was handled with care.

How things changed

In the twentieth century, balers and tractors changed hay-making. Compact bales, round or square, could be handled by machine and stored in barns, so large free-standing haystacks became much less common on many farms. The great stack lives on in paintings, in old photographs, and in sayings such as the one that gave this game its name.

The haystack as a symbol

Because a haystack is such a big and messy thing, people used it as the picture for any hard search. You can read how that happened in Needle in a haystack: where the saying comes from.