TOOLS FOR GARDEN AND ORCHARD USE. 307 



TOOLS FOR GARDEN AND ORCHARD USE. 



S. D. RICHARDSON, WINNEBAGO CITY. 



I have been a farmer and nurseryman all my life, and what I 

 have to say will be for the farmer, for I do not know what tools are 

 necessary for the market gardener. I would state as a starting point 

 that if possible a garden should be situated so that a horse can be 

 used to cultivate, and that everything be planted in rows. I some- 

 times plant three rows of the small vegetables close together and 

 use a hoe for the two inside rows and cultivate on the outside. Some 

 kind of an adjustable cultivator for one horse, that will stir the 

 ground thoroughly, three inches deep, if necessary, and leave the 

 ground level, not hill up the rows, seems to be necessary for both 

 garden and orchard. We use one with fourteen shovels the size of 

 ordinary seeder shovels. If used often and early enough, while the 

 weeds are small, there will not be much use for a hoe between the 

 rows. 



For the orchard two whiffletrees, each eighteen inches long, an 

 evener to match, some cloth to wind the outside ends of the whiffle- 

 trees, a steady team and a man to drive them that has what a Yan- 

 kee calls "gumption" and a westerner ''horse-sense, " and the tools 

 usually found among our farmers will be all that is needed. 



Mr. Wyman Elliot : I think we want to emphasize the last 

 clause of Mr. Richardson's paper, the "gumption ;" I think that is 

 the foundation of all cultivation. Now, the tools we have for gar- 

 dening and for orchard use are nearly the same, and the first tool 

 is the plow. That is the most essential tool on the farm. A good 

 plow should turn the furrow nicely and should break and pulverize 

 the soil. Then we follow the plow with the harrow. Either the 

 spike tooth, the disc or the Acme harrow should be used, and I think 

 the Acme is the preferable tool of the three for putting the soil in the 

 best condition. Mr. Richardson has not touched upon gardening 

 tools, and being an old gardener, perhaps I would be more familiar 

 with that part of it than some others. The gardener has to use tools 

 very similar to those of the farmer, and sometimes he uses tools that 

 the farmer does not use, but I think every farmer should have what 

 is called a seeder and cultivator combined. The Planet, Jr., and the 

 Matthew seed drills are two very essential forms of tools for the 

 gardener, and they can also be put to good use on the farm, espec- 

 ially where farmers grow any kind of garden truck. I am sorry to 

 say that our farmers as a class do not pay the attention to growing 

 vegetables that they should. There are many of the minor tools, such 

 as the spade, fork, hoe, etc., that are very essential on the farm and 

 in gardening, but there is one tool in particular that I want to rec- 

 ommend to you all if you want a good one, and that is the Bronk hoe 

 for the destruction of weeds. You can take a long handled manure 

 fork and have the tines turned down five or six inches, and then vou 



