[Note: Sense 3 was formerly at buck n2.]
hay buck n Also buck
1 = hay sweep n; hence comb buck load. chiefly NW, IA, KS Cf buck rake n 2, hay bucker n 1
1876 Pacific Rural Press (San Francisco CA) 26 Aug 138/2 NV, I noticed a hay “buck” in use here also, which passes from cock to cock, gathering a load and taking the hay to the stack. . . The “buck” requires a piece of timber, four by six inches and from 14 to 16 feet long, with five or six fingers, from two to three feet apart. . . Several upright pieces are imbedded into main beams to keep the hay from falling off in the rear. 1896 Renwick Times (IA) 15 May 1/4, A writ of attachment has been issued and the following property taken up by virtue thereof: One Mower, one Hay Ricker, one Hay Buck, one and one-half stacks of loose Hay and some baled Hay. 1902 U.S. Bur. Plant Industry Bulletin 15.36 cnNV, seOR, swID, The hay is brought up to the base of the plane, usually by a four-horse buck, and deposited in a net. . . Where the ground is very rough a drag buck is substituted for the wheeled one in ordinary use. 1920 DN 5.82 eWA, Hay buck. An implement used to rake hay into a stack. 1943 Rolfe Arrow (IA) 17 June 1/6, Auto Hay Buck Shown 150 County Farmers. . . These auto bucks are one of the most efficient ways of moving the hay from the field to the barn. The buck is constructed on the back of an old automobile chassis. 1967 DARE Tape OR2, That’s a thing that picks up hay after it’s raked, and the old-timers used to have a buck, and it’s a bunch of teeth that goes in front of the four horses—they generally had two- and four-horse bucks, big ones and little ones—and it’s pushed the same as a header, only instead of cutting, why, it picks it up. 1967 DARE FW Addit ceOR, Buck load of hay—500–1000 pounds of hay. After it’s bunched, it’s picked up with a hay buck. 1968 DARE (Qu. L16, Machines used . . in handling hay) Inf KS15, Hay buck—has long teeth, picks up the hay and puts it in piles. 1994 Salina Jrl. (KS) 3 Apr 24/6, [Advt:] GB 900 Highmaster loader with hyd[raulic] bucket, big bale fork, hay buck and grapple fork with 4010 mountings. 2012 in 2017 DARE File—Internet wPA, I got to help make hay with our neighbor yesterday. He’s Amish, so he does it a bit different then [sic] most people. . . He bought a kit to build a Hay Buck. Here are a few pics of his team in action with the hay buck.
2 See buck n1 5.
3 See quots.
1973 Allen LAUM 1.185 SD (as of c1950), For a small pile of hay in the field. . . Sweep bunch and haybuck [2 of 203 infs] probably reflect the large-scale hayfarming operations of the western prairies. Ibid 186, Hay buck: Larger than a bunch [1 inf, nwSD]. . . A buck, or load, in each pile [1 inf, cnSD].