380 THE YOUNG FAKMEft's MANUAL. 



playing straight up and down. A very little slide or draw when 

 an instrument is cutting, often gives it more efficiency than we 

 are wont to suppose. 



545. When a young lad begins to whittle, he very soon learns, 

 without any instruction, to give the knife blade a diagonal mo 

 tion across the stick. In using a drawing knife a workman soon 

 learns, when shaving a hard stick, to draw the knife across the 

 stick, as he draws it towards him. A man may clasp the edge 

 of a sharp tool or razor very firmly and it will not cut his hand, 

 but draw the instrument or hand a very little, and with one-fourth 

 the pressure the edge will enter readily. When a young man 

 first begins to pass the razor over his face, he often finds that 

 even with a good razor he is not able to cut his down-like beard 

 unless he draws his razor; and even then some of it is so very 

 slim and limsy like the down on a young gosling that it will 

 slip between the serrature of the edge. (See PUTTING RAZORS 

 IN ORDER, 550.) 



546. In trimming fruit-trees, or shrubs, or hedges, if the cutting 

 instrument makes a crushing cut, more than twice the force is re 

 quired in cutting off a small branch than is necessary when it is 

 cut with a sliding stroke. And more than this, the work is much 

 better, and more neatly performed, if the cut is sliding. 



547. Pruning shears, represented at Fig. 150, by having a slot 



FIG. 150. 



SLIDIXG-CUT PRUNING SHKARS. 



in one of the blades, so that the centre-pin will move easily back 

 and forth in it, make a sliding cut when cutting off branches, or 



