Abstract: A haymaking machine in which fork-bearing arms are mounted in a pivoting fashion on a ring. These fork-bearing arms are controlled so that they can pivot about their respective longitudinal axes during rotation of the ring via a belt driving the ring and which is located at least in part near said ring, so that the area near the center of the rotor is clear. The fork-bearing arms are controlled in such a manner that their forks extend approximately vertical and will gather plants approximately on the entire forward half of their trajectory and that subsequently they are raised and the plants are deposited gently in the form of a swath. In this way the forage does not undergo any loss and it is not necessary to have a second rotor which works together with the swathing rotor in order to form a swath. Since the central part of the ring remains unobstructed, this allows passage of parts of the support frame and/or devices used for controlling the spacing with respect to the ground of the working forks.