cradle scythe

In Little House in the Big Woods (Chapter 11, "Harvest"), Pa and Uncle Henry cut their oats with a cradle. In Farmer Boy (Chapter 19, "Early Harvest"), Father Wilder and Almanzo cut their oats with a cradle. In Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder tells us the difference between a scythe and a cradle, but since there are no scythes in Little House in the Big Woods, she doesn't bother.

A snath with a blade is a scythe. A scythe with teeth is a cradle. Cradles are used to cut oats; scythes aren't. A snath is the long S-shaped wooden shaft with a handle near the middle and a long curved blade at the end, forming a scythe. The cradle is a frame of wood with long curved ribs added to the snath and projecting above and parallel to the scythe blade; it cuts grains and lays them in a straight swath. The cradle acted as a gathering rake and allowed the harvester to deposit the grain in an even pile with every swing of the scythe

Back when Pa and Uncle Henry were cutting oats in the Big Woods, a strong man could cradle two to three acres per day. A fifty-acre field would keep a man occupied for twenty days. About a week was all that a man could count on before his grain became too ripe to handle without waste, but Uncle Henry (at least) must have had a small oat field of about five acres, since it only took the two men a day to cut his oats, and that was counting the afternoon distractions caused by Cousin Charley.

To see a youtube video which includes both the cradle and shocking oats (it's not at the beginning, so keep watching), go HERE.

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- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM