Studies on Scythes (I)

The Importance of Scythes in Hay Harvesting

Abstract

According to the agricultural statistics of Japan in 1904, about 400 thousand farms fed about 1200 thousand cows (average 3.1 cows a farm). Among them feeding 10 more cows a farm are only 1%. Farm mechanization is hardly performed besides tilling and ensilase cutting, so in harvesting the most farms use sickles. Sickles being used in harvesting, the labor hours used in harvesting is 40-80% of the total labor hours (tilling, manuring, seeding, harvesting, cutting).
In Japan, although the number of cows increases 120 thousand a year in the recent 3 years (so we shall have 2 times of cows by 1974), yet average farm of Japan has only 1 hectare. So the mechanization by 4 wheel tractors cannot be expected in Japan.
We did not use scythes or cradles in harvesting before, but recently in some farms scythes begin to be used in harvesting. The Author intended to estimate the roll of scythes and made it clear that the scythe is the important means at the stage of mechanization in Japan, for the sickle is still used by the most of farms. The efficiency of using scythes or sickles is decided by the strength of laborer, sex, the length of labor hours, the skilfulness of laborer and the sorts of grass. So it is vary difficult to calculate the efficiency exactly. In this investigation, it was found that using sickles and scythes the time of labor is increased with the amount of grass, but using the tractor the time of labor is dependent on the area of land. Average time required for harvesting 1000 kg of grass is 2 hours by using scythe and 6 hours by using sickles. The properties of the scythe of Japan comparing with Austria will be dealt with in the next report.