{"id":7181,"date":"2010-01-25T21:00:31","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T02:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=7181"},"modified":"2018-11-22T19:52:27","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T00:52:27","slug":"cradle-scythe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/7181","title":{"rendered":"cradle scythe"},"content":{"rendered":"

hand cradle.<\/strong> An instrument added to a scythe, for cutting grain. It consists of a light framework of long, flexible teeth parallel to the scythe, designed to receive the grain as cut, and to lay it evenly in swaths. \u2014 Webster, 1882<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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scythe.<\/strong> An instrument for mowing grass, grain, or the like, composed of a long, curving blade, with a sharp edge, made fast to a handle, called a snath, which is bent into a convenient form for swinging the blade to advantage. \u2014 Webster, 1882<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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How to Cradle Grain. “All strike as one, with a symphonant cadence; \/ All step at once, with a measured advance; \/ Bowing together the brawny arm’s aidance, \/ Into the slow swing of the shoulders’ expanse.” – Burleigh. <\/em><\/p>\n

     
\nI<\/span>n Little House in the Big Woods<\/em> (Chapter 11, “Harvest”), Pa and Uncle Henry cut their oats with a cradle. In Farmer Boy<\/em> (Chapter 19, “Early Harvest”), Father Wilder and Almanzo cut their oats with a cradle. In Farmer Boy<\/em>, 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<\/em>, she doesn’t bother to describe them there. <\/p>\n

A snath with a blade is a scythe<\/em>. A scythe with teeth is a cradle<\/em>. 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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

To see a youtube video which includes both the cradle and shocking oats (it’s not at the beginning, so keep watching), go HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n
\nhand cradle<\/strong> (BW 11; FB 19; THGY 16, 21; PG)<\/p>\n

scythe<\/strong> (FB 19; BPC 8, 25)
\n     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blade and handle used to cut oats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[628],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7181"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12586,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions\/12586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}