INSTRUMENTS USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



95 



round the neck of the raidisseur before the real strain is applied. 

 It is almost needless to add that the wire is simply placed in the groove 

 in the head of the raidisseur, 

 which is then turned, and finally g * 



tightened with a key like that 

 for the other forms." ( The 

 Parks, Promenades, and Gar- 

 dens of Paris.') 



Shears, in regard to their 

 mode of cutting, are of two 

 kinds : those which separate 

 by a crushing cut, as in the 

 common hedge-shears, fig. 52, 

 the grass-shears, and verge-shears ; and those which separate 

 by a draw or saw cut, as in the pruning-shears, fig. 53. The common 

 hedge-shears is used in 



gardens for topiary work, lg ' 



cutting hedges of privet, 

 and other small - leaved, 

 slender - twigged hedge- 

 plants, which do not cut 

 so readily with the hedge- 

 bill ; and it is more espe- 



The simplest and best form of raidisseur. 



Shears for clipping hedges and box-edgings. 



Fig. 53. 



cially used for clipping box-edgings. The pruning-shears, fig. 53, have 

 one blade, which, by means of a rivet, moves in a groove, by which 

 means this blade is drawn across the branch in the 

 manner of a saw, and produces a clean or draw-cut : that 

 is, a cut which leaves the section on the tree as smooth as 

 if it had been cut off by a knife. There are instruments 

 of this kind of various sizes, from that of a pair of common 

 scissors, for pruning roses or gooseberry bushes, to such 

 as have blades as large as those of common hedge-shears, 

 with handles four feet long, which will cut off branches 

 from two to three inches in diameter. All of them may 

 be economically used in gardens, on account of their great 

 power and the rapidity and accuracy with which opera- 

 tions are performed by them. Fig. 53 shows two instru- 

 ments commonly known as Wilkinson's shears, which 

 are well adapted for pruning shrubs, and for the use 

 of amateurs. Roses are better pruned by instruments of this kind 

 than by knives, as unless the latter are kept very sharp, the soft- 

 ness of the wood and the large quantity of pith it contains, yield to the 

 knife, and occasion too oblique a section, in consequence of which the 

 shoot dies back much farther than if the section were made directly 

 across. 



The secateur is a French instrument that every gardener should 

 possess himself of. I know well the prejudice that exists in England 

 among horticulturists against things of this kind, and their almost 

 superstitious regard for a good knife. I also believed in the knife, but 



Pruning- 

 shears. 



