Book V. OPERATIONS WITH PLANTS. ! 453 



up or accumulate soil about the stems of plants, for which purpose a hoe with a large blade 

 or shovel, will produce most effect ; and the fourth, is to form a hollow gutter or drill, 

 in which to sow or insert tlie seeds of plants, for which a large or small draw-hoe may 

 be used, according to the size of the seeds to be buried. The use of the hoe for any of 

 the above purposes requires dry weather. ^jq 



2895. Hoeing between rows of crops, is sometimes performed by 

 what is called a hoe-plough, which is a small plough having a 

 share with double fins, and drawn by one man, and pushed by 

 another. It is in use in India, and is sold in London under the 

 name of the Indian hoe-plough, but it is more for the exercise 

 of amateurs on free soils, than for useful culture. In this way a 

 master may exercise both himself and his valet, and clear his 

 potatoes or turnip crop at the same time. The Dutch have a 

 hoe {Jig. 410.), which is drawn and pushed at the same time, 

 for the purpose of cleaning walks, or scraping turf or mud from 

 roads or court-yards, 



2896. Hand raking is performed by drawing through the surface of the soil or over 

 it, a series of small equidistant wedges or teeth, either with a view to minute pul- 

 verisation, or to collecting herbage, straw, leaves, stones, or such other matters as do 

 not pass through the interstices of the teeth of the rake. The teeth of the rake being 

 placed nearly at right angles to the handle, it follows that the lower the handle is held 

 in performing the operation, the deeper will be the pulverisation when that is the object ; 

 and, on the contrary, that the higher it is held, the interstices being lessened, the fewer 

 extraneous matters will pass through the teeth. The angle at which the handle of the 

 rake is held must therefore depend on the object in view ; the medium is forty-five 

 degrees. For all raking, dry weather is essentially requisite, and for raking hay the angle 

 which tlie handle of the rake makes with the ground's surface, ought to be fifty degrees. 



2897. Scraping may be described the drawing a large broad blunt hoe along the sur- 

 face, for the purpose of collecting loose excrementitious or other useless or injurious 

 matters from roads, yards, or from grassy surfaces to be rolled or mown. The Dutch 

 hoe (Jig. 410.) is a good road and lawn scraper. 



2898. Sweeping is a mode of scraping by a bundle of flexible rods, twigs, or wires, 

 which enters better into the hollows of irregular surfaces, and performs the operation 

 of cleaning more effectually. In agriculture it is used in barns and in stables, though 

 shovelling is generally sufficient for the common stable and ox-house. 



2899. Screening or sifting earth or gravel, are operations performed with the gravel- 

 sieve or earth screen for separating the coarser from the finer particles. The materials 

 require to be dry, well broken, and then thrown loosely on the upper part of the screen, 

 which being a grated inclined plane, in sliding down it, the smaller matters drop 

 through while the large ones pass on and accumulate at the bottom. In sifting, the 

 same effect is more completely, but more laboriously produced by giving the sieve a 

 circular motion with the arms. 



2900. Gathering is a very simple operation, generally performed by women and child- 

 ren, as in taking up pQtatoes or other roots, or picking up stones, weeds, or other mat- 

 ters considered injurious to the surface on which they lie or grow. 



2901. Cleaning roots or other matters, is generally performed by washing, and on a 

 large scale, by the root washing machine, which has already been described, together witlt 

 the mode of using it. 



2902. VarioiLS manual labors and operation might be added; such as slicing turnips ; 

 chopping them with the chopping hoe (2456.) in the fields ; cutting straw or hay into 

 chaff; bruising beans or other grain, or whins, or thistles between rollers; pushing a 

 drill -barrow, &c. ; all which require only bodily exertion, with very little skill ; being 

 performed by the aid of machines, which in describing, we have also indicated the modie 

 of working (2466. to 2474.). 



Sect. III. Agricultural Operations with Plants. 



2903. Agricultural operations with the vegetable kingdom rank higher than those with 

 the soil or machines, as requiring not only strength, but some of them a considerable de- 

 gree of skill. 



2904. Weeding, however simple an operation, requires a certain degree of botanical 

 skill to know what to weed or extract. These are such plants as it is not desired to cul- 

 tivate. The operation is performed in various ways : by the hand simply ; by the hand, 

 ^ded with a broad-pointed knife, or a bit of iron hoop ; by the hand, aided by gloves 

 tipped with iron ; by pincers, as in weeding tall weeds from growing corn, or close- 

 hedges, or out of water ; and by the aid of forks, spuds, or other weeding tools. In 

 weeding, it is essential that the weeder know at sight the plants to be left from such as 

 are to be removed, which in agriculture is generally a matter of no difficulty, as, how- 

 ever numerous the weeds, the cultivated plants are but few. In weeding ferns, thistles, 

 nettles, &c. from pasture lands, it has been found that breaking or bruising them over 



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