INSTRUMENTS USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



97 



pressed when the instrument is required to be opened. M. Lecointe 

 of Laigle is the inventor. 



Fig. 55 represents the secateur of older date than the preceding, 

 and one more generally used. It is much employed at Montreuil. 

 There can be no doubt that where much pruning of any kind is done, 

 and particularly pruning of a rather rough nature, the secateur is a 

 valuable implement. For pruning, in which great -p- 56 



nicety of cutting is required, a good and properly- 

 shaped knife is best. The secateur was first in- 

 vented by M. Bertrand of Molleville. 



The axe, fig. 56, can scarcely be dispensed 

 with in gardens, for the purpose of sharpening 

 props or other sticks for peas, &c. ; and a larger 

 axe, as well as a common carpenter's saw, may be required where 

 branches are to be broken up for fuel for the hothouse furnace, or other 

 fires. The best axe is the American. 



Verge-shears, fig. 57, are shears of 

 the crushing kind used for clipping the 

 edges of grass-verges, which they do 

 without cutting the soil, as is commonly 

 the case when any of the different de- 

 scriptions of verge-cutters already de- 

 scribed are used. The blades of these 

 shears operate in a vertical plane, the 

 handles being held edgewise. 



The short grass scythe, fig. 58, c, is 

 now but little used in gardens ; mowing- 

 machines of all sorts and sizes have 



usurped its place, to the immense economy Verge, <kc. shears. 



of labour and the better sweeping of the 



grass. Still as a scythe or two is indispensable in most gardens for 

 cutting under trees, &c., the following instructions may be useful. The 

 blade of the scythe cuts ex- 



Garden-axe. 



Fig. 57. 



actly on the same principle as 

 that of the saw, and it requires 

 to be frequently sharpened by 

 a hand-stone or whetstone, as 

 well as occasionally ground. 

 The blade of the garden-scythe 

 requires to be fixed to the 

 handle in such a manner that 

 when the handle is held by 

 the operator standing upright, 

 the plane of the blade shall be 

 parallel to the plane of the ground. 



Fig. 58. 



Garden-scythe and daisy knife. 



In the case of field-scythes, where 



the ground is rough, the plane of the blade may be very nearly in the 

 same plane as that of the handle ; by which means the inequalities of 

 the ground s surface will chiefly be struck by the back of the blade, 

 and never by its edge. The daisy-knife or daisy-scythe, fig. 58, d, is 



