12 IMPLEMENTS AND HOW TO USE THEM. 



more than a cast steel one, we have simply wasted our 

 strength in lifting one ton of iron which has not been of 

 the least use to us, and so with every other tool. If we 

 take into consideration the numerous strokes which a man 

 hoeing has to take during a day's work, a difference of one 

 or two ounces in the weight of a hoe becomes quite an item 

 in the useless expenditure of strength. Spades, forks, 

 hoes and rakes should, therefore, always be made of the 

 best cast steel. 



Spades for digging purposes, in pulverizing the soil, are 

 now but seldom used among the better class of gardeners, 

 the spading fork being substituted for it. This fork is 

 about the size and shape of a spade, having four or five 

 flat tines, about three-quarters of an inch wide. Being so 

 much lighter than a spade, and exposing so much less sur- 

 face to the friction incident to pushing it into the soil, it 

 saves a large amount of muscular expenditure, and our own 

 experience is that a man will do one-third more digging in 

 a day with one of these forks than with the lightest made 

 spade, and do it with far less fatigue. The work is also 

 better done than with the spade, especially if the soil is in 

 any way wet, for the spade turns it over in heavy, cheesy 

 lumps, whereas the fork, in lifting it, breaks it up and pul- 

 verizes it more readily. 



This kind of fork cannot be readily used as a manure 

 fork, on account of the width of the tines,, and neither can 

 a manure fork be used for spading purposes, on account of 

 its curvature and the narrowness of the tines hence it is 

 necessary to provide a manure fork for the handling of the 

 manure used. 



The operation of digging is apparently a very simple 

 one, yet very few of our laboring men really understand 

 it They will take the spade* and run it into the ground in 



