Just out of interest really -
A recent conversation got me wondering about how much labour was involved harvest/threshing etc pre-mechanisation. I've heard a man could cut around an acre a day with a scythe, is that about right? If so this was obviously only the start - I'm guessing some of the other jobs (binding sheaves, threshing etc) were probably even more time-consuming.
Is the following an accurate list of the work involved in a pre-industrial harvest, and if so is anyone able to put a figure on how many man-hours, per ton or acre or whatever, each step would have taken?
Reaping (scythe)
Binding sheaves
Shocking
Pitching/loading/carting sheaves
Building ricks
Threshing (by flail)
Winnowing etc
Then say in the early c20th, with binders and threshing machines, I guess it would have been (?):
Cutting with binder
Shocking
Loading/carting sheaves
Building ricks
Threshing (machine- team of how many, 8 ish?)
A recent conversation got me wondering about how much labour was involved harvest/threshing etc pre-mechanisation. I've heard a man could cut around an acre a day with a scythe, is that about right? If so this was obviously only the start - I'm guessing some of the other jobs (binding sheaves, threshing etc) were probably even more time-consuming.
Is the following an accurate list of the work involved in a pre-industrial harvest, and if so is anyone able to put a figure on how many man-hours, per ton or acre or whatever, each step would have taken?
Reaping (scythe)
Binding sheaves
Shocking
Pitching/loading/carting sheaves
Building ricks
Threshing (by flail)
Winnowing etc
Then say in the early c20th, with binders and threshing machines, I guess it would have been (?):
Cutting with binder
Shocking
Loading/carting sheaves
Building ricks
Threshing (machine- team of how many, 8 ish?)