How Farmers Harvested and Threshed Wheat in the 1880s?

In the 1880s, farmers used special tools to harvest and thresh wheat like they were playing a big game.

When it was time to harvest, farmers would walk through the fields with long, sharp blades called scythes. It's like using a giant grass cutter, they’d swing the scythe back and forth to cut down the wheat stalks. Once the wheat was cut, they bundled it into tight groups called sheaves, think of them like big, round buns tied with string.

After the wheat was harvested, farmers would take it to a special place called a threshing floor, where they used another tool called a flail. A flail is like a heavy stick attached to a rope, you swing it around and hit the wheat bundles hard, just like when you play with a bat in baseball. This process, called threshing, separates the grain from the stalks and chaff (which is like the extra bits of hay or leaves that come along for the ride).

Once all that was done, the clean wheat grains could be stored for food or sold at the market, just like how you put your toys away after playing!