McCormick Reaper Centennial Source Material -- 1954

              One method was to plow the ground, furrow it both ways, 4 feet apart, and, where the furrows crossed, 4 or 5 kernels were dropped.  Two men could plant 10 acres a day. Another and older way was to open the ground 3 or 4 inches after plowing with a broad hoe, drop in the corn, and cover it. After the corn was up, the ground was hilled around the stalk with a hoe.
CORN HARVESTING
Frequently when the corn had attained its growth it was topped; that is, the tops and strongest blades were cut off for fodder. Later the ears were pulled off and carried home. Another method was to cut the crop and stack the corn and later feed it to the stock in the field.
HARVESTING
The method employed and the implements used in harvesting, thresh¬ ing, and cleaning grain were but little advanced over those of the ancient Israelites. Wheat and sometimes other small grains were still reaped with a sickle on many farms.  In early colonial days the sickle was often referred to as the reaping hook, which the colonists brought with them. With the sickle or reaping hook a man could reap from a half acre to an acre of wheat in a day.  One writer, speaking of harvesting hemp in Kentucky as late as 1844, said that with a hemp hook a good hand could cut an average of a half acre a day.
In 1831 the cradle, which had been introduced before 1800 in the middle colonies, was the most effective harvesting implement.  The cradle consisted of a broad scythe with a light frame and several wooden fingers attached, corresponding in shape and nearly of the same length. With this the grain could be cut and at the same time gathered, and by a dexterous turn to the left the reaper could throw it in a swath, ready to be raked and bound into sheaves.
In cradling grain, two acres was considered a day's work.  In referring to the cradle, an early writer said that a man could cradle four times as much oats or barley as he could cut wheat with the sickle in a day. That cradling was considered an art is evident from the fact that cradlers received better pay than ordinary farm hands.  In some communities cradling was almost a trade by itself, and a good cradler could demand and would receive two or three times as much pay as a common laborer.  Sometimes grain was cut with a scythe but usually with the sickle or the cradle. Even as late as 1840 the sickle had not been entirely abandoned.  Sometimes oats and barley were cut with the scythe, and three acres a day was considered a good day's work.
It is said that a man could hand-bind behind a cradler and keep up with him.  That this is probably true is evident from a comparison of the reaper and cradle at the Geneva trial held by the New York State Agri¬ cultural Society in 1852.  It was asserted by the committee in charge that the cradling and binding of a field of 15 acres of wheat in one day would require 14 or more men—about 7 cradlers, each cutting 2 acres, and 7 or 8 men at the most to rake and bind and shock the crop.
Hay was usually cut with a scythe, and estimates vary as to the amount of ground covered. Some writers insist that an acre a day in heavy green grass was a fair day's work.  Others state that a man could mow as
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