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PART II. 



IMPLEMENTS, STRUCTURES, AND OPERATIONS OF 

 HORTICULTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



IMPLEMENTS OF HORTICULTURE. 



385. WITH the progress of gardening a great many tools, instruments, 

 utensils, machines, and other articles, have been invented and recommended ; 

 and some of these are without doubt considerable improvements on those 

 previously in use; while, on the other hand, many would be rather im- 

 pediments than otherwise in the hands of an expert workman. The truth 

 is, that for all gardening in the open air, and without the use of pots for 

 growing plants, or walls or espaliers for training trees, the only essential 

 instrument is the spade. There is no mode of stirring the soil, whether by 

 picks, forks, or hoes, which may not be performed with this implement. 

 It may be used as a substitute for the dibber, or trowel, or perforator (in 

 planting or inserting stakes) ; instead of the rake and the roller in smoothing 

 a surface and rendering it fit for the reception of the smallest seeds ; and 

 after these are sown, the spade may be employed to sprinkle fine earth over 

 them as a covering, by which indeed that operation may be performed more 

 perfectly than by " raking in." The only garden operation on the soil which 

 cannot be performed with the spade, is that of freeing a dug surface from 

 stones, roots, and other smaller obstructions, which are commonly " raked 

 off ; " but as the removal of small stones from the soil is of very doubtful 

 utility, and as at all events these and other obstructions can be hand- 

 picked, the rake cannot be considered an essential garden implement. The 

 pruning-kmfe might in general be dispensed with in the training of young 

 trees, by disbudding with the finger and thumb ; but as the branches of 

 grown-up trees frequently die or become diseased, and require cutting off, 

 the priming-knife may be considered the most essential implement next to 

 the spade ; and with these two implements the settler in a new country 

 might cultivate ground already cleared so as to produce in abundance every 

 vegetable which was found suitable to the climate and soil. 



386. But though a garden of the simplest kind may be cultivated with 

 no other implements than a spade and a knife, yet for a garden containing 

 the improvements and refinements common to those of modern times, a 

 considerable variety of implements are necessary or advantageous. Some 

 of these are chiefly adapted for operating on the soil, and they may be 

 designated as tools ; others are used chiefly in pruning and training plants, 

 and may be called instruments ; some are for containing plants or other 

 roots, or for conveying materials used in cultivation, and are properly uten- 

 sils ; while some are machines calculated to abridge the labour of effecting one 

 or more of these different purposes. We shall arrange the whole in groups 

 according to their uses, previously submitting some general observations. 



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