<P> To get the bales up into the hayloft, a pulley system ran on a track along the peak of the barn's hayloft . This track also stuck a few feet out the end of the loft, with a large access door under the track . On the bottom of the pulley system was a bale spear, which is pointed on the end and has retractable retention spikes . </P> <P> A flatbed wagon would pull up next to the barn underneath the end of the track, the spear lowered down to the wagon, and speared into a single bale . The pulley rope would be used to manually lift the bale up until it could enter the mow through the door, then moved along the track into the barn and finally released for manual stacking in tight rows across the floor of the loft . As the stack filled the loft, the bales would be lifted higher and higher with the pulleys until the hay was stacked all the way up to the peak . </P> <P> When electricity arrived, the bale spear, pulley and track system were replaced by long motorized bale conveyors known as hay elevators . A typical elevator is an open skeletal frame, with a chain that has dull 3 - inch (76 mm) spikes every few feet along the chain to grab bales and drag them along . One elevator replaced the spear track and ran the entire length of the peak of the barn . A second elevator was either installed at a 30 - degree slope on the side of the barn to lift bales up to the peak elevator, or used dual front - back chains surrounding the bale to lift bales straight up the side of the barn to the peak elevator . </P> <P> A bale wagon pulled up next to the lifting elevator, and a farm worker placed bales one at a time onto the angled track . Once bales arrived at the peak elevator, adjustable tipping gates along the length of the peak elevator were opened by pulling a cable from the floor of the hayloft, so that bales tipped off the elevator and dropped down to the floor in different areas of the loft . This permitted a single elevator to transport hay to one part of a loft and straw to another part . </P>

When was the first square hay baler invented