Hay

The first hay harvest after the Rebellion was a watershed. The animals, having expelled Mr. Jones, threw themselves into the work with a zeal that exceeded any human era. Boxer and Clover harnessed themselves to the cutter and the horse-rake, while the pigs directed and supervised. The harvest was completed two days faster than Jones and his men had ever managed, and it was the largest the farm had seen, with no wastage. This success proved that animals could manage the farm themselves and fed the early euphoria.

But hay soon became a commodity. When the windmill project demanded cash, Napoleon announced the sale of a stack of hay and part of the wheat crop. Later, as the farm remained short of money, another stump of hay was sold off, alongside potatoes, and the egg contract was increased to six hundred eggs a week, forcing the hens to barely hatch enough chicks to maintain numbers. The original principle that no animal should engage in trade was quietly overridden.

By the later years, the farm grew richer, but the animals themselves did not. Squealer's lists of figures claimed enormous increases in production—up to five hundred per cent—yet the animals often worked longer hours and ate no better than in Jones's day. The hay that was produced was partly sold off, while the pigs and dogs prospered. The structure of the farm economy had shifted from shared abundance to a system in which the pigs extracted the surplus, a reversal of the exploitation Old Major had condemned.