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What year did the first hay baler go to the field?

Bruce from Can.

Bruce from Can.

Well-known Member
Location
Woodville, Ontario, Canada
My dad was born in 1918, and told me that as a teenager in the thirties, he could get work sometimes in the winter, forking hay from barns , and into a hay press, as they called them. A hay buyer would own the haypress or baler and bring it to your farm. You would have to provide the crew to fork the loose hay from the barn, and into the stationary baler, and load it onto wagons, haul it to town. It was sold by the ton, and after going across the scale, the hay dealers crew would load the hay onto box cars on the railroad siding. There was still a strong market for hay in the city, with many companies still using horses and wagons to make deliveries. No one had a baler that could bale from the windrow in our neighbourhood until my dad bought hi AC Roto-Baler in 48. He was busy baling hay for others for a few years. NH square balers were the first windrow balers that I heard of, any ideas as to when they first hit the market?
 
I studied up on this a few years ago. Around 1932 there was a small company that basically took a stationary hay press/baler and made a window pickup for it. So it did pick the hay up and bale right in the field. It took three people to run. One to drive the tractor pulling the baler and two to wire tie the hay bales. J.I. Case made the first commercially successful baler just right after the other one. I can remember some older case baler still being used when I was very little.

Self tying balers where designed in the early 1940s. Production started right after WWII. NH and JD both had them by then. I am not sure when the other brands came out with a self tying baler. They might have even beat JD and NH but JD and NH seem to have the most units on the time.
 
Bruce I need to clarify the first self tying pull behind working baler. Ed Nolt did it on his own and ended up working for New Holland till he died.
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I was 5 or 6 when my dad bought a JD square wire baler in the middle 50s.

He pulled it with a JA A.

So, I'm going to say balers were in the fields before the 50s.
 
The first farmer I remember help puttting up hay for had a JD baler that the bales come out the side. Probably middle 50's.
 
My old neighbor had an IH baler sitting in the edge of his woods. It was the first baler in our area, and his father and the two sons custom baled with it, sometimes far enough from home that they slept in the fields rather than make the drive home for the night. He claimed that it was the first baler that did not require someone to ride the knotter, and that NH copied or bought the idea. The knotters were on the side, rather than the top. I have no way to confirm the story, but I remember comparing the knotters with my NH baler, and they were quite similar, but then aren't they all similar? I wouldn't be surprised to find that the old baler is still sitting over there.
 
I remember seeing a magazine article about the Nolt baler. It was probably at least 50 years ago. I think it was in a magazine we used to get that was published by New Holland.
 
Bob, Seems like Ed Nolt was quite the inventor and did not want any fame. He just wanted a baler that worked! The guys that formed New Holland saw a great idea and the rest is history.
 
Depends on self tying or not. Grandpa had a Deere pickup baler in about 1940 that you had to punch wires and twist by hand. Dad was working for Grandpa punching wires when he met Mom. Grandpa pulled baler from farm to farm to custome bale with a 35 Ford Car. IH had a baler of the design of the Deere at that same time. Deere had one between what Grandpa had and the 116 that was called the sidewinder that was a wire tie that came out in 46. Not sure if the one between you punched wires or not but I do have a book on it someplace. New Holland brought out the 66 in either 53 or 54 as twine self tie and Dad bought a new one second year they were out. Deere did not have a twinr baler untill the 14T in 55 and the wire was still the 116 in 56 with the 14W comming in 57. I have some books for both the one Dad worked on for Grandpa and the IHC built at that time.
 
After WWII, my Dad and Uncle decided to modernize. They put electric in the barn, expanded it, and bought the first hay baler in northern Kentucky(just south of Cincinnati). It was an IH/McCormick Deering 50t-1948 model. Dad said it had a lot of trouble tying bales until one day it tied while passing over a tree stump: the needles busted off on the stump. So they had to replace the whole knotter assembly. With the new knotters, it tied a whole lot better. They custom baled all over for many years, until most people locally quit farming. We ended up a farm surrounded by suburbia. Mark.
 
My father bought a New Holland 76 in late 1947. It tied the bales without human input whenever everything was clean and in proper time. However, it did also have a seat for a rider to watch the bales and monitor the tying in case something went wrong. My father complained until the day he traded it off some eight years later that he had to pay a thousand dollars over market price because he bought if off of what was called the black market. However, it baled thousands of bales and was an income producer for him. I think of the baler whenever someone complains about trying to start a Wisconsin VE4 when it was hot. We at times turned around our Model A JD and put a flat belt onto the Wisconsin to restart it if the baler plugged.
 
That sure looks like my dad's first NH baler.....engine driving a long belt which turned 2 large bull gears, wad board to stuff the hay coming off the auger into the plunger chamber and side tie knotters.

Ben
 
I remember in 1947, as a hired man, sat on one side of the baler either poking wire or tying. Baler had gas engine that ran a large flywheel by belt.
 
According to my Dad; the self tie wire baler was developed by Henry Collins in Ks. in the 30's. He had devoted many years to the development; losing wife, family, farm. He sold the patent to Fairbanks Morse, who in turn sold to Oliver Ann Arbor. The price was $50,000. I don't think this was a BS story.
 
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