A modified scythe carrying a set of wooden fingers attached to its snaith that catch and align cut grain stems into a neat row as the blade swings, rather than letting them fall scattered. It let a less-skilled mower harvest substantially more grain than a plain scythe or sickle, and made the cut stalks faster to gather and bind for threshing. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Introduced Year1800 marks the start of the grain cradle widest US Midwest adoption window (to 1840); earlier use in parts of Europe predates this and is not more precisely dated by the source. OriginUsed in parts of Europe, but reaching its widest adoption in the Midwestern United States between 1800 and 1840, a period across which fifty American patents for cradle variants were issued, spanning 1823 to 1930. 1 Connections
Associated With
a grain cradle is a scythe fitted with a frame of wooden fingers to catch the cut stalks for cereal harvesting
Sources
1. Cradle (grain) (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory sectionQuote, History section
Lesser skilled mowers could harvest significantly more grain by using the cradle.
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