3^68 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



IMPLEMEN^TS AKD MATERIALS. 



It has been said over and over again tliat a good workman 

 can do Ms work better with a few ordinary tools and imple- 

 ments, than some who fancy themselves gardeners can with 

 all the fashionable instruments. If a gardener could not do 

 without all that Loudon recommends in his Encyclopaedia, he 

 must absolutely be a man of some capital even to buy his 

 tools, and require a cart to carry them about. Ko less than 

 eighty-eight implements are described and figured, and others 

 described only. If the gardener goes into a tool shop, he 

 may take his choice of fifty different varieties of hoe, but he 

 would not want more than three or four, and the next that 

 goes in may choose them all different. It would be useless, 

 therefore, to mention more than three or four. Again, with 

 respect to spades and forks, a man might desire a broad spade 

 for digging, and a smaller one for planting ; and forks would 

 offer him a choice of three, four, or five prongs, but he would 

 only want one fork. We propose to give a list of the tools 

 a man Avould require, and also to add in this chapter the 

 machines and implements, such as barrows, engines, mowing 

 machines, &c. We shall first mention the ordinary tools that 

 every gardener must have. 



1. The Spade. — We recommend two, one as large as the 

 man can handle well with ease to himself for hard digging, 

 and a narrower tool for planting. 



2. The Eork.— Of late years it has been found that digging 

 in many cases can be done easier and better with a five- 

 pronged fork than by a spade, and, moreover, that it tears 

 the ground to pieces better. These forks are made of well- 

 tempered steel by Dray, of Swan Lane, Thames Street ; and 

 it is astonishing how much more ground can be gone over in 

 a day, and that too with half the labour that it could be done 

 with the spade first, because the fork is some pounds lighter, 

 and secondly, because it is easier thrust into the ground. 



3. The Dung-fork, used for turning over dung, making 

 hot-beds, &c. 



4. The Dibber. — This is an instrument to make holes 

 mth for planting. It has a handle like a spade, is from 

 twelve to eighteen inches long, and is iron shod, so that it 

 does not cling to the soil, and makes a smooth round hole. 



5. The Trowel. — This is a sort of scoop shape, and is used 



