permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

*History | Scythe Association*
http://scytheassociation.org/history/

 Scythe Association <http://scytheassociation.org/>
http://scytheassociation.org/history/
History

Notes on the History of the Scythe and its Manufacture
By Simon Fairlie. First published in the Tools and Trades History magazine
2006 also windrow 2, 2011

Much of the world’s farming land can be divided into two zones: the machete
zone and the scythe zone.  The machete is a formidable implement — a
skilled  user can peel an orange, halve a wasp in mid flight or  open up a
coconut with one swing. It is even used to  mow lawns; but the machete is
most comfortably swung  at hand height, and hence is particularly
associated with  vegetation which is tall, such as tropical forest or
sugar  cane, and with regions such as South America and Indonesia,  where
that kind of vegetation predominates. The  European equivalents of the
machete are the billhook,  and the faghook, or sickle  The scythe is a tool
specially adapted for cutting  vegetation at ground level. There is no
other reason  for its existence: it is useless at hand height and (unlike
the machete) very unwieldy as a weapon. Initially it  was probably designed
for grass; but as pasture became  harder to find, and livestock were
increasingly fed on  different kinds of straw, the importance of cutting
oats,  barley and other grains close to the ground became more  important
and the scythe began to replace the sickle as a  way of harvesting crops.
The scythe is therefore found in most areas of the  world where grass and
grains such as wheat, barley, oats  or rye are the predominate agricultural
crop. The scythe  belt emanates from Europe and the Middle East, but
extends from the Mid West of Canada and the US A,  through the whole of
Europe, much of Russia, the Middle  East, Egypt and some other north
African countries,  Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Kirghizstan and other colonies of
the  former USSR, a few parts of China and of the Indian  subcontinent to
Australia.

*Types of Scythe  *

There are several varieties of scythe. There is some  extraordinary early
film footage (c 1915) of folk in the  north of Finland mowing with
two-edged scythes which  they wield in an airborne figure of eight motion,
all  members of the team (whom we have previously witnessed  breakfasting
on vodka) moving in perfect synchrony  so that their flailing blades don’t
clash.  Scandinavian scythes are still somewhat different  from those found
throughout the rest of the world, and  some are still handmade by
individuals. Otherwise, 95  per cent of scythes in the world nowadays
belong to one  of two categories: the Anglo-American scythe, made and  used
up until recently in England and the US; and the  much lighter,
hand-forged, “continental scythe”, sometimes  known as the Austrian scythe,
because Austria has  excelled in its manufacture. The Anglo-American
scythe  is now hardly made, and the continental model is becoming
universal.  It is fairly easy to see why the Anglo-American  model has been
largely superseded in recent years; the  continental model is considerably
lighter and easier to  use. Traditional English blades were either stamped
or  rough forged and then shaped by heavy grinding. Austrian  blades hardly
visit the grinding wheel except for  finishing, and are hand-forged, wafer
thin, to an elegant  curve in all three dimensions so that the finished
blade  is under tension and therefore stronger in relation to its  weight.
Because the blade is lighter, the snath, and hence  the whole kit, can be
lighter as well. A brand new 75 centimetre  Anglo-American rig, still
available in a few farm  stores, weighs 3 kilos; an Austrian blade of the
same  length with an adjustable ashwood snath weighs 1800  grams, 60 per
cent of its rival.  There are those who maintain that the heavy English
scythe is more suited to heavy English grasses, and  there may be some
truth in this, but the fact remains  that it is now nearly extinct. Why
have Anglo-American  blades nearly died out while the continental model is
still  sold in its millions. And why haven’t continental blades  caught on
in Britain up till now?

*Early History  *

The scythe appears to have developed during Roman  times, though it
probably wasn’t developed by the  Romans. Pliny, in his Natural History
noted that there  were two kinds of scythe: the heavy Gallic kind, and the
shorter Italian model. Several examples of what is presumably  the Gallic
type have been discovered, and they  are impressive, up to five feet long.
In the 1960s, John  Anstee had a replica made and found that skilled
scythesmen  had no problem mowing with them.  These Gallic scythes were
made of soft steel with a  strip of higher carbon steel sandwiched inside
to provide  the cutting edge. This is precisely the method used by  English
scythemakers to produce what were known as  Crown blades — the main kind of
blade manufactured in  the UK until “Patent” blades were invented in the
19th  century. This single fact suggests that the Gallic blades  were a
forerunner of the traditional English scythe.  Whether the shorter
“Italian” blade mentioned by  Pliny can be seen as a forerunner of the
continental  scythe is less clear. In the early 14th century a “lighter
more flexible” scythe known as the Hainault scythe, with  a shorter handle
came into use in Flanders, but it never  caught on in England.

*Continental Scythe Manufacture*

The modern continental scythe industry is often  described as having its
origins in the occupation of  Austria by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th
century. The  Ottomans were renowned for the quality of their steel,  and
the area of Styria, in Austria, supplied everything  that was needed for
state-of-the art steel manufacture  in the 16th century: iron ore, timber
for charcoal, and  waterpower. I have yet to find any firm evidence in the
English language that this was indeed what happened:  but it seems to be
widely accepted, and in the second half  of the 20th century, the Austrian
Scythe Union marketed  its blades as Turk Scythes (Turkensensen) to evoke
these  origins.  The continental method of forging scythes spread  right
across Europe and until recently similar blades  were made in Spain,
France, Italy, Sweden, Germany,  Slovakia, Poland and Slovenia. However the
Austrians  dominated the industry; around the time of the First  World War
there were 53 scythe producers, many of  them based at watermills in small
towns and villages,  and some of them dating back to the 1500s. Millions
of  scythes were exported from Austria every year (allegedly  up to 10
million at the end of the 19th century) many of  them to Russia. I have
read somewhere that when Napoleon  declared war on the Austro Hungarian
empire, he  ran into problems because France was dependent upon  Austrian
scythe blades for its harvest.  In the second half of the 20th century the
industry  started declining, because sales were dropping in the
industrialized countries, while factories in Turkey and  China started
producing blades of lower quality, much  cheaper. One by one the small
factories closed. For a  time, a number of factories in Austria and
Germany  joined forces to form the Sense Union (Scythe Union)  which
produced the Turk blade. But eventually even  many of these closed, and now
there are no factories in  Germany, and just two in Austria, Schroeckenfux,
and  Offner.  The manufacturing process at the Schroeckenfux  works remains
similar to that employed over the last  400 years. The blades are
hand-forged under a trip  hammer, originally water-powered but now
electric.  (The Redtenbacher factory in Scharnstein was using  some water
power up until its closure in the 1980s.)  In all there are at least 15
processes, many of them  highly skilled. It is a long apprenticeship to
learn how  to perform the principle forging processes and only a  small
number of apprentices are considered to have the  aptitude to perform the
most highly skilled work, which  is therefore well-paid.  Since the scythes
are hand forged, they can be made  to any pattern specified by the customer
and there  are patents for literally thousands of patterns. I have  a
Schroeckenfux order form dating from the 1930s,  which has a diagram of a
scythe with about 20 different  measurements and angles which the customer
is invited  to specify.

*The English Scythe Industry  *

The English scythe industry evolved in a very different  direction from
that on the continent. There were  two main differences  Firstly, whereas
the dominant tradesman on the  continent was the smith, in the UK it was
the scythegrinder.  The amount of forging involved in the manufacture  of
the English Crown blades appears to have  been relatively low, compared to
the Austrian process. A  strip of hard steel was sandwiched between two
plates  of softer steel, and the three were hammer welded together,  and
then plated out to the required width.  In the 19th century another style
of blade, the “Patent  blade” was developed, which comprised a flat sheet
of rolled steel stamped out and hardened, and then  riveted to a rigid
back. Patent blades were manufactured  by Tyzack in Sheffield up until the
late 1980s, and can  still be found in hardware stores.  Both kinds of
blade required prodigious amounts  of grinding which was performed by men
suspended  above huge water-powered grinding wheels, so as to be  able to
place all their pressure on the blade. It is easy to  see where the
expression “nose to the grindstone” came  from. In 1879 a workman could
grind only two to three  dozen crown blades in a day — which gives an
indication  of the considerable amount of grinding involved.

*Industrialization and Revolt  *

The other feature of the English industry was  its early concentration and
industrialization. Whilst  scythe-making in Austria remained a largely
rural  industry, based in small towns and villages, in the UK  it became an
urban industry. Although there were small  scythe grinding mills to be
found in villages around  the country, by the first half of the 19th
century the  industry was becoming highly concentrated in Sheffield.
According to Don Tyzack, “following enclosure . .  . the army of little
mesters  making scythes gave way  to bigger workshops  making machine
knives”  for reaping machines, and  scythes for a market kept  buoyant by
demand from  the colonies. Much of  the scythe manufacturing  industry lay
under  the control of one family,  the Tyzacks. By the 20th  century, the
Tyzacks (who  split up into a number of  firms) seem to have gained  a
monopoly over scythe  production in the UK. At  their Stella works in
Sheffield,  there were 20 “sturdy  grinders” working side by  side on 20
large wheels.  Scythe grinding was  a vile occupation, and the  almost
certain risk of silicosis,  meant that many scythe-grinders died by the
time  they reached 40. However the scythe-grinders union was  strong, and
very active in the Sheffield Outrages of the  1850s. Machinery was
destroyed, factory owners were  shot at, and the secretary of the Scythe
Grinders Union,  Michael Thompson, was accused by Joshua Tyzack, of  paying
men to blow up scythe grinding wheels with gunpowder.  The union hustled 14
scythe grinders out of the  country to avoid their prosecution.

*Men’s Work?  *

Another charge laid against the scythe in England  is that it contributed
to the marginalization of women  in agriculture. Mowing, as well as being
highly skilled,  was regarded as particularly physically demanding work.
According to Richard Baxter “though the labour of a  smith be hard” it is
in “a dry house, and by short fits; and  little in the comparison of
threshing and reaping; but as  nothing in comparison with mowing, which
constantly  pulls forth whole man’s strength.” Scythe work was  highly
paid, and it was a male monopoly. At haymaking  women and boys would do the
raking and turning, while  men would mow. Since there was a need for twice
as  many turners as mowers, this was perhaps not altogether  surprising.
It was when the scythe took over as a means of  harvesting corn that it
became particularly injurious to  women’s interests. Grain harvesting was
originally a  predominately female activity, and as long as the sickle
remained the main means of harvesting grain, women  could work as reapers.
Alice George, an Oxford woman  who claimed to be over 100 years old told
John Locke in  1681 that in her youth “she was able to have reaped as  much
in a day as any man, and had as much wages”.  The advantage of a sickle was
that it left the second  hand free to lay the stalks of corn neatly for
the  followers who would bind it into stooks. A scythe cut  quicker but it
left the stalks in disarray, so more time  was taken binding. The
development of the cradle in  the 18th century meant that corn could be
mown with a  scythe and deposited neatly in rows for the convenience  of
the binder; and that the straw could be cut lower. As  the scythe gradually
replaced the sickle in the harvest,  women found themselves relegated to
lower paid jobs  such as raking and tying — and once mechanization was
introduced, they found themselves excluded completely.  I doubt whether the
male monopoly over the scythe  was confined to the UK, but it seems likely
that it was  particularly entrenched here because of the additional  weight
of the English scythe — and also because of the  highly structured and
centralized nature of the English  agricultural economy. In the European
peasant economy,  there was much more “soiling”, than in Britain — mowing
grass on a daily basis for dairy animals, rabbits etc  — and this was more
likely to be performed by a woman  than gang mowing. I have about six
historic pictures of  women mowing and only one shows a gang, and that  was
in France during the First World War. In the 1950s  the Austrian firm
Vindobona was advertising its scythes  with a picture of an cheery
Heidi-like lass scything in  a headscarf and apron, but to what extent this
was an  advertising gimmick designed to emphasise the lightness  of the
kit, and to what extent it reflected actual use, I do  not know.

*The Future for the Scythe Industry  *

Despite the above shortcomings, the Anglo-American  scythe remained a much
loved and respected tool,  which over the centuries played a major role in
feeding  entire nations. Many consider it unduly heavy, but there  are some
who maintain that its weight is necessary to  achieve impetus through the
thick English grasses: and  it is true that the Northern versions of the
continental  scythes tend to be somewhat heavier than those designed  for
hotter countries where the grass cover is usually thinner.  Overweight or
not, the scythe was a popular tool,  and scything was a popular and well
paid occupation,  much preferred to threshing, and so nobody complained.
But, unlike the continental scythe it has not stood  the test of time. As
far as I can gather the last scythes  made in England on any scale were
manufactured  around 1987, and these were also the last Patent scythes
made anywhere. You can still buy a hickory snath from  the US, together
with something resembling a Crown  blade, but these are now made at the
Schroeckenfux factory  in Austria, where one worker asked me “Why do  you
English like your scythes so heavy?” This article is, I  suppose, my
attempt to answer him.  The continental scythe industry, by contrast,
shows  no signs of collapsing, though the remaining European  producers
face stiff price competition from Turkey and  China. Scythe use is
experiencing a revival in some west  European countries because of the
tool’s environmental  benefits: and there is still high demand in the
Middle  East and neighbouring countries. There was a newspaper  report
recently that US invaders are attempting  to gain the confidence of Iraqi
farmers by giving them  gifts of scythe blades — the sure way to a
peasant’s  heart. One wonders which manufacturer’s blades they  were giving
away, now that they don’t make their own.  The collapse of the English
scythe industry may  have less to do with the form of the tool, than with
the  structure of the English agricultural industry, which has  succeeded
in pulling more people off the land than in  almost any other country.
There is perhaps an argument  that the form of the English scythe was
compliant to the  process of industrialization. Be that as it may, it
seems  almost certain that, as people come back to the land, it  will most
likely be the continental style scythe to which  they will turn. Perhaps,
one day, someone will make  them in Britain.

MAIN SOURCES  Don Tyzack, *Glass, Tools and Tyzacks*, published by Don
Tyzack, 1997.  Michael Roberts, “Sickles and Scythes: Women’s Work and
Men’s work  at Harvest Time”, *History Workshop*, Oxford, 1979.  David
Tresemer, *The Scythe Book*, Alan C Hood, 1996.  J W Anstee, “Scythe Blades
of Roman Britain”, *Countryman*,