262 



THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 



THE WEDGE. - HOW TO MAKE WEDGES. 



M The mighty power of the wedge to sever 

 Both flinty rocks and gnarls, exceeds the lever. 

 Impelled by force of oft-repeated blows, 

 In splitting, piercing, cutting, and in cleaving, 

 Or rending right and left, or in upheaving 

 Unlike the screw its power no measure knows." EDWARDS. 



344. Fig. 118 represents a well-formed iron wedge, and a is 

 the head, b is one of the sides, d is one of the edges, and e is the 



118 



FIGURES 

 119, 120, 



entering edge. A wedge will not 

 rebound as readily when the cor 

 ners at the entering edge are made 

 flush, or square, like the figure, as 

 it will when the corners are round 

 ed off very much like the edge of 

 an old axe, the corners of which 

 are well ground off. Sharp cor 

 ners of an iron wedge make it 

 stick when entering. 



345. Fig. 119 is a very ill- 

 shapen wedge, but very like the 

 iron wedges which many laborers 

 use, and exactly like the wooden 

 wedges which are often made with the false impression that they 

 will be more effective of such a form than if they were like Fig. 

 118. But wooden wedges of such a form cannot possibly be as 

 effective for any purpose as if they were like Fig. 118, because 

 small wedges of such an ill form will be crushed at the entering 

 point before they are half driven in ; and if large wedges are 

 made of such a form, it requires a greater number of blows to 

 drive one in far enough to open a log two inches. 



346. Every author whose writings I have consulted on the 

 subject of the wedge has simple spoken of it in philosophical or 

 theoretical terms, and the most important considerations which 

 affect, directly or remotely, many of the operations of the farm, 

 and which are all-important for the beginner to understand, have 

 been entirely overlooked or rejected ; and what has been penned 



