278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



tigations of hand tools for road making or agriculture 

 generally, with few exceptions it is believed they are giving 

 more patronage to factories of tire-arms, fish-rods, weedy 

 lawn-tennis and base-ball equipments. Of course we expect 

 much good from the more generous culture of our youth in 

 out-of-door sports ; but why not, with tit and even ele- 

 gantly fit tools for hand labor, let the good come right 

 along? We need it noio! 



Some cities have discovered that tramps will break stone 

 nicely on the road when furnished with lithe hammer handles 

 as long as billiard cues. Whip-handle hammers — metal 

 flat-turnip form, of layer wrought, or cast cast steel — will 

 commend themselves, whenever seen and used, for making 

 and maintaining solid and smooth roads. The knob-handle, 

 working in the palm of the hand like the pully in the belt, — 

 another ball-and-socket joint to the fore-arm, — is half the 

 battle with the labor of cracking stone. The ordinary 

 mechanic's hammer, cut with two faces from bar steel, is fit 

 for the anvil and work bench ; but a steel swingel and flail- 

 staff would be more fit for striking blows on the road. The 

 ordinary broad, flat hammer handle of the mechanic, when 

 made long enough to enable a man to stand upright and 

 reach the road, strains and cramps the muscles of the hand 

 and wrist intolerably. The great cause of poverty and 

 misery is that we have few or no hand tools for the land 

 which laboring people would be proud to own. Labor is 

 much shrewder than we think. 



Here are pull-forks with knob-handles, for overhauling 

 and assorting stone and gravel, dumped above grade on the . 

 head of the fill in road making. These are indispensable for 

 solid, smooth- wearing and durable gravel-work: — 



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