A stook /stΚk/, also referred to as a shock or stack, is an arrangement of sheaves of cut grain-stalks placed so as to keep the grain-heads off the ground while still in the field and before collection for threshing. Stooked grain sheaves are typically wheat, barley and oats. In the era before combine harvesters and powered grain driers, stooking was necessary to dry the grain for a period of days to weeks before threshing, to achieve a moisture level low enough for storage. In the 21st century, most grain is produced with the mechanized and powered methods, and is therefore not stooked at all. However, stooking remains useful to smallholders who grow their own grain, or at least some of it, as opposed to buying it.
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π Stook in the context of Sheaf (agriculture)
A sheaf (/ΚiΛf/; pl.: sheaves) is a bunch of cereal-crop stems bound together after reaping, traditionally by sickle, later by scythe or, after its introduction in 1872, by a mechanical reaper-binder.
Traditional hand-reapers, using scythes and working as a team, cut a field of grain clockwise, starting from an outside edge and finishing in the middle. Scything leaves a windrow of cut stems to the left of the reaper and, if cut skillfully, leaves the seed heads more or less aligned. These are then picked up and tied into sheaves by the sheavers, who traditionally use other cut stems as ties. These sheavers, or a following team, then stand the sheaves up in stooks to dry. Three to eight sheaves make up each stook, which forms a self-supporting A-frame with the grain-heads meeting at the top. This keeps the grain well ventilated, and off the ground allowing it to dry and discouraging vermin.The drying sheaves are later either placed by hand or pitched onto a cart. The traditional sheaf pitchfork has a long wooden handle, two short tynes and a rounded back to make the placing of sheaves easy. The gathered sheaves are then either built into stacks (thatched stacks could be over 20' high) or taken to a barn for further drying before being threshed to separate the grain from the stems.
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Stook in the context of Reaper-binder
The reaper-binder, or binder, is a farm implement that improved upon the simple reaper. The binder was invented in 1872 by Charles Baxter Withington, a jeweler from Janesville, Wisconsin. In addition to cutting the small-grain crop, a binder also 'binds' the stems into bundles or sheaves. These sheaves are usually then 'shocked' into A-shaped conical stooks, resembling small tipis, to allow the grain to dry for several days before being picked up and threshed.
Withington's original binder used wire to tie the bundles. There were problems with using wire and it was not long before William Deering invented a binder that successfully used twine and a knotter (invented in 1858 by John Appleby).