Poland population and farming model

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

The text of Ruins of Warsaw mentions scythes as farm implements--that's a fairly labor-intensive method of harvesting the grain.
Anybody have an idea how difficult it would be to cobble together a couple of McCormick Reapers to bring the Warsaw harvest in while allowing most of the hand labor to go to shoring up the fortifications? And about how many would be needed to bring their harvest in within 2-3 days?

Johnny come lately here. A hay mower can do the job of the reaper. Fabricate a pan of sheet metal behind the sickle head and a person with a rake pulls it off for the bundlers. Power for the mower might be a problem unless you have old horse drawn mowers which are ground driven. The typical horse mower had a five foot cut. Moving at 2 mph, walking speed for the horse pulling the mower, you cut about 1.2 acres/hour. A ten hour day, which is not all work, so figure about 80% efficiency (which is still too high problably) leaves about 1 acre/hour. Ten hours = ten acres cut. It would take a crew of one driver, one raker, and probably 3-4 bundlers at least per machine. There would be more as shockers come along gathering bundles to place in shocks (small stacks) unless the bundles are hauled right away to the barn. The grain is cut a bit on the green side to cut down shattering (grain loss), and needs to cure in the shock for several days before threshing begins. Weather plays a big part in this. But assuming field shocks are made, 2-3 shockers might be needed per machine to get the grain off the ground. So your looking at a crew of 7-9 persons to cut 10 acres/day.

You can figure the math as to how many are needed for three days work as I don't know how many acres you're talking about. I would say a typical field though is probably no more than 20 acres if it's all done by muscle power, probably smaller in the range of 5-10 acres.

In days of old one man with a scyth could cut about an acre a day so I've read. He needed a bundler or two with him, and another to shock, so there were 3-4 persons cutting an acre a day...

Hope this helps some, and not too late.
Grae