This post concerns a presumed antique hay bailer that was abandoned long ago by on a ranch on the north side of Simi Valley in southern California. In the late 1970's, I was doing some field work in this area and came across this piece of ranch machinery. That was about time that this former ranch was also being considered to become a country club “development.” That never happened, and the ranch continued for a short time (at a much reduced scale) to do agriculture work, cattle raising, and oil drilling. Eventually, the owners “pulled up stakes,” and the land fortunately became an official part of the “Marr Ranch Open Space,” which can now be used (for free!) by hikers.
Figure 1. A hay baler?, on the old Marr Ranch, north side of Simi Valley, Southern California. This photograph was taken by me in the late 1970's. Note: you can see another image (taken by someone else in recent years) of this exact same baler (with fewer weeds around it) online on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=9AGzSURu_W
This presumed baler is still in the same exact location as when I photographed it.
I became curious as to the vintage of this small, presumed hay baler. Hay balers were invented about 1850 or so, when farmers started bailing hay. Horses were used to pull the portable hay balers. In the 1930’s, balers became attached to tractors. By 1971 or so, the first large-sized hay baler (used for large-scale work) became available to ranchers/farmers.
In summary, in my opinion, it is likely that the presumed small, hay baler that I came across was probably a model used in the 1940s, or shortly thereafter.
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