Lesson plan
Swathe
A swathe ( British English, rhymes with "bathe"; or swath American English, rhymes with "cloth") is the strip of cut crop made by a scythe or a mowing-machine. A mower with a scythe cuts a swathe along the mowing-edge leaving the uncut grass to the right and the cut grass laid in a windrow to the left on the previously mown land. The swathe width depends on the blade length, the nature of the crop, and the mower, but for grass is usually about wide. When mowing in a team the mowers start at the edge of a meadow in a staggered line, then proceed clockwise, leaving a series of swathes with windrows and finishing in the middle. The scythe has generally been replaced by machinery, such as a mechanical swather or a combine harvester, which cut much wider swathes while forming windrows. Early in the introduction of machinery, when horses or tractors had to precede a towed cutter, it was still necessary for mowers with scythes to open up a swathe wide enough to take the machine before it could start. Swathe width may also refer to the width of any repetitively cut, scanned or sampled strip such as in aerial mapping, lidar, radar or sonar scans or multibeam echosounder bathymetric surveys collected by a moving satellite, aircraft or ship.
Article summary
A swathe ( British English, rhymes with "bathe"; or swath American English, rhymes with "cloth") is the strip of cut crop made by a scythe or a mowing-machine. A mower with a scythe cuts a swathe along the mowing-edge leaving the uncut grass to the right and the cut grass laid in a windrow to the left on the previously mown land. The swathe width depends on the blade length, the nature of the crop, and the mower, but for grass is usually about wide. When mowing in a team the mowers start at the edge of a meadow in a staggered line, then proceed clockwise, leaving a series of swathes with windrows and finishing in the middle. The scythe has generally been replaced by machinery, such as a mechanical swather or a combine harvester, which cut much wider swathes while forming windrows. Early in the introduction of machinery, when horses or tractors had to precede a towed cutter, it was still necessary for mowers with scythes to open up a swathe wide enough to take the machine before it could start. Swathe width may also refer to the width of any repetitively cut, scanned or sampled strip such as in aerial mapping, lidar, radar or sonar scans or multibeam echosounder bathymetric surveys collected by a moving satellite, aircraft or ship.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.