Haymaking at Latchel

Hay making is a long established method of conserving grass for feeding animals through the winter and has been an important part of the farming calendar in the United Kingdom for the last six thousand years. Successful haymaking relies on the crop of grass being thoroughly dried before it is baled or stored. Cutting must be done when the weather is fine and several continuous dry days are expected. Hay making is usually undertaken during late June or early July. Burnard may have taken this photograph because it was significant that hay was being made on Dartmoor during August in 1890. It is probable that the summer of 1890 was unusually wet as on 17 July 1890 exceptionally heavy rainfall over Dartmoor resulted in severe flooding.