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A scythe (/ s aɪ ð /, rhyming with writhe) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains , before the process of threshing .
German cradle scythe from a painting by Ernst Henseler (1852–1940) A grain cradle or cradle, is a modification to a standard scythe to keep the cut grain stems aligned. The cradle scythe has an additional arrangement of fingers attached to the snaith (snath or snathe) to catch the cut grain so that it can be cleanly laid down in a row with the grain heads aligned for collection and efficient ...
A serrated sickle was used for harvesting wheat, the ears being held bunched up in the free hand as described above. After this the straw was cut with a scythe. Oats and barley on the other hand were simply scythed.
Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulses for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. [2] On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large mechanized farms, harvesting uses farm machinery, such as the combine harvester. Automation has increased the ...
Wheat sheaves near King's Somborne.Here the individual sheaves have been put together into a stook ("stooked") to dry. A sheaf of grain on a plaque Sheafing machine. A sheaf (/ ʃ iː f /; pl.: sheaves) is a bunch of cereal-crop stems bound together after reaping, traditionally by sickle, later by scythe or, after its introduction in 1872, by a mechanical reaper-binder.
Prior to industrialization, people harvested small grains like wheat by swinging a scythe and then manually tying the cut stems into bundles to dry. This was slow heavy work, with six people able to harvest about two acres of wheat in a day. With the Industrial Revolution, various people began trying to build machines to speed up the process. [3]
During the 1750s, these agricultural innovators replaced the hand sickles and scythes used to harvest hay, wheat, and barley with the cradle scythe, a tool with wooden fingers that arranged the stalks of grain for easy collection. This tool was able to triple the amount of work done by a farmer in one day.
A reaper is a farm implement that reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass, especially wheat. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reapers that were used in Roman times in what would become modern-day France.