XII 

 GARDEN TOOLS 



AS one cannot have a good garden without cultivat- 

 ing it, there cannot, in turn, be good cultivation 

 without good tools. By good tools, the beginner will 

 come to understand, is meant useful tools. They need 

 not be elaborate, expensive and intricate affairs, but 

 neither need they be as clumsy as the implements of the 

 aborigines. 



In gardening you dig up the soil, pulverize it, and 

 work it over. Hence you will need a spade (or a 

 garden trowel for a small bed), a rake (or a gardening 

 hand rake for a small bed), and a hoe (or again the 

 garden trowel for a small bed) in cultivating. None 

 of these things can well be dispensed with because they 

 are primitive in principle and yet eternal in usefulness. 



When you have turned over the soil with the spade 

 or trowel, have pulverized it, more or less, with rake or 

 hand-rake, and have had your seeds in the ground until 

 they are just appearing, you will find the hoe (or a hand 

 weeder in small beds) necessary in checking the weeds 

 which always seem to outdistance the garden plants 

 in growth rapidity. 



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