The phrase dictionaries say that the phrase "hit the hay" came from early 1900s mattresses being stuffed with hay or straw. Have you ever seen hay? Remember, I was raised on a farm, and I used to help my dad "hay" (used as a verb). Hay is made from nutritional grasses and legumes, such as alfalfa or clover. Hay is very green & moist and has a prickliness to it; it would not be good bedding and in fact is only used as feed for animals on farms. Straw, on the other hand, comes from the hollow stalks of grain, is dry and softer and is non-nutritious. It is used to bed down cows and other animals in the winter.

I think the phrase should be "hit the straw."

Onlyne Etymology Dictionary

Slang phrase hit the hay (pre-1880) was originally "to sleep in a barn;" hay in the general fig. sense of "bedding" (e.g. roll in the hay) is from 1903.

Tinman

Is this where we get the expression "to make a bed", from the notion that one must literally assemble ("make") a pile of straw to sleep upon?

I just think it was the non-farming types who came up with those phrases. Straw is used in the sense of "bedding" in barns, and hay is fed to the cows or other animals.

Well, being an old farm-boy, or as we say out west in California, a rancher, I can state that not all hay is green. We had at various times between 700 and 3000 acres under cultivation mainly in oats. We always bailed at least some hay, but mainly produced oats and straw. After cutting and placing it in windrows, we allowed the hay to pretty much dry out before bailing it. On the other hand, when I lived on a ranch in NW Nevada for a year, we had about a 1000 acres in cultivation of alfalfa. That was bailed rather green.

On to the various qualities of hay. Having lumped (i.e., carried) enough bails and shoveled enough oats into the auger for loading, I'd think that straw, what's left over after the oats have been threshed, makes a more ideal bedding, and we mainly sold ours for horses to do just that. I've crawled around on any number of haystacks and have even caught a quick nap on bails of hay, and I can say it's not a comfortable place to sleep. (The mice and barn owls do provide some entertainment though.) As for rolling in the hay, I'd imagine it to be pretty painful for all involved. I believe that matresses were stuffed with straw, at least in the Middle Ages, if not up until the 19th century.

Hope this helps, Kalleh.

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I can state that not all hay is green

I agree. Even the green hay that we first cut eventually changed over the winter to a brownish color. It does sound like you agree with me, though, that hay is not a pleasant sleeping medium. That was my point.

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Well, being an old farm-boy, or as we say out west in California, a rancher,

That just goes to show the importance of words. In the midwest it was considered lower class to be a "farmer," while I bet in the west it was considered much higher in class to be a "rancher." Perhaps the amount of land involved made a difference, but often midwest farmers had thousands of acres.

I was a city kid and didn't know the difference between hay and straw until I was at least in my 20's.

I agree with you, kalleh - it must have been city folk who coined the phrase "hit the hay". We just don't know any better!

While reading about H W Fowler and his brother's experiences in the Great War, I came across this:

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On 29 December the men were warned of a possible move forward and were issued with their kit, weighed down with service caps, gas helmets, and other necessaries, until they felt it difficult to move with the load. In fact they remained at the base for a few more days and were then sent up to join the batalion resting behind the lines at Busnettes. The journey was hard, for they travelled by train in cattle trucks 'followed by several hours of standing & several miles of marching with very heavy packs over very bad roads at rather a severe pace'. Living conditions on arrival were improved: they slept in a barn with 'a blanket each, & plenty of straw' but a single lantern meant difficulties with letter writing.

[Jenny McMorris (2001) The Warden of English: The Life of H W Fowler, Author of Fowler's Modern English Usage, p.122.]

When the war started, H W and his brother joined up, even though Fowler was in his fifties at the time. He wasn't really sent to the front to fight, but ended up doing menial chores at various bases.

Cater: Me neither. When I was a kid visiting my cousin on the farm my country cousin had to be gone one morning, and he had asked me to feed the cows hay. When I asked him the difference between straw and hay he replied, "Hay is in technicolor"

So, observing that it seemed more brightly colored, I fed them straw, and couldn't understand their disdain of it