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[–] 11 points 2 days ago (3 children)

When scythes were invented, they were a very hot, new, efficient tool. Previously they only had some curved had knifes and had to harvest every few bits of wheat individually, but with a scythe you could take those wide swings and get lots of wheat at once.

Think of it as going from a handgun revolver to a machine gun, except in a way that a medieval peasant would understand.

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  • [–] 1 point 13 hours ago

    even better: Mowing with a scythe lets you easily deposit the grain neatly in a row (windrow), which means you can just have one person hauling ass on the scythe and another behind them bundling up the straws.
    It's honestly pretty insane how close to ideal scythe harvesting is.

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