Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/491

Rh implements. Five reap-hooks and one sickle were among the articles bequeathed in the will of Dr. Francis Haddon in 1674. The personalty of Captain William Marshall included twelve sickles, and that of John Thomas, eleven sickles and reap-hooks. The cradle was employed as early as the sixteenth century, but only in cutting barley and oats. Wheat was reaped throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuryies.

In describing wheat culture in Virginia about the middle of the century, Williams states incidentally that the grain could be trodden out without any difficulty by means of oxen, from which it is to be inferred that this was a more popular method than the flail. Towards the end of the century, the sieve was employed to remove the chaff, this implement being imported not only from Old VOL I.2 H