140 



INSTRUMENTS USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



Fig. 48. Garden axe. 



and the rapidity and accuracy with which operations are performed by them. 

 Fig. 47 shows two instruments 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 softness 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. 



414. The Axe, fig. 48, 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 

 hot-house furnace, or other fires. 



415. Verge-shears, fig. 49, a, 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 descriptions of verge-cutters 

 already described (399) are used. The blades of these shears operate in a 

 vertical plane, or what is called held edgewise. 



416. Grass-shears, fig. 49, &, are used instead instead of the scythe for 



clipping the grass round the roots of 

 shrubs or other flowering plants on 

 lawns ; but as they are very apt to 

 go out of order, the common hedge- 

 shears is generally used in prefer- 

 ence; the stooping necessary in using 

 the hedge-shears being found by the 

 operator less laborious than that of 

 keeping the blades of the long- 

 handled shears in a cutting position. 

 The blades of these shears work in 

 a plane parallel to the surface of the 

 ground, from which they are sup- 

 ported behind by two castor wheels, 



or in other words, they work flat- 

 Fig. 49. Verge and Grass-shears. ,/> 



\\ LSC . 



417. The Short- grass Scythe, fig. 50, c, is essential wherever there are 

 grass- verges on lawns, because though in many cases the mowing machine 

 may be used on broad surfaces, it is not so convenient for verges and small 

 irregular places as the scythe. 

 The blade of the scythe cuts ex- 

 actly on the same principle as 

 that of the saw, and it requires 

 to be frequently sharpened by a 

 hand-stone or whet-stone, as well 



as occasionally ground. The ^s^r- ~^ <i 



blade of the garden-scythe re- 

 quires to be fixed to the handle 

 in such a manner as 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. In the case of field- 



