264 



TARRYTOWN LETTERS. 



our garden, and he growing Agropynaii repens under 

 it to run through our potatoes, what could we do 

 with a wheel-hoe there in the latter part of the 

 season ? But one of those pointed hoes could be 

 shoved under the neighbor's rails or pickets, and 

 hoe half a row on his side of the fence easier than 

 he could do it with a wheel-hoe. So among run- 

 ning cucumber, melon or squash-vines, where any 

 other hoe would be ruinous, it is nothing but play, 

 with one of those fourteen-inch blades, to go over 

 all the spaces inclined to weediness, not only among 

 the vines, but 



around a hun- 

 dred other 

 things in every 

 well-appointed 

 kitchen garden, 

 that cannot be 

 reached by any 

 other hand or 

 horse cultiva- 

 tion with one- 

 tenth the speed, 

 accuracy and 

 power. 



Scores of 

 times during the 

 season, the ten 

 or fifteen min- 

 utes one has to 

 enj oy in the 

 flower, fruit and 

 vegetable gar- 

 den — and that 

 would suffice 

 for the needful 

 weeding with 

 the hoes we are 

 celebratin g — 

 would be lost 

 i n harnessing 

 horses or ad- 

 justing and oiling squeaky wheel-hoes, even if every- 

 body had them. 



The Garden is not big enough, nor my patience 

 long enough, to give more than an inkling of the 

 unspeakable merits of these weapons of society and 

 civilization. When Mrs. Tarryer was showing 

 twelve or fifteen acres of garden with never a weed 

 to be seen, she valued her dozen or more of these 

 light implements at five or ten dollars daily ; whether 

 they were in actual use or adorning the front hall, 

 like a hunter's or angler's furniture, made no differ- 

 ence. But where are these millennial tools made 



One of Mrs. Tarryer's Girls with Her Hoes. 



and sold ? Nowhere. They are as unknown as the 

 Bible was in the dark ages, and we must give a few 

 hints towards manufacturing them. 



First, about the handles. The ordinary dealer 

 or workman may say those knobs can be formed on 

 any handles by winding them with leather ; but just 

 fancy a young maiden setting up her hoe medita- 

 tively and resting her hands and chin upon an old 

 leather knob to reflect upon something that has 

 been said to her in the garden, and we shall per- 

 ceive that a knob by some other name would smell 



far sweeter. 

 Moreover, trees 

 grow large 

 enough at the 

 butt to furnish 

 all the knobs we 

 want — even for 

 broom-sticks — 

 though saw- 

 yers, turners, 

 dealers and the 

 public seem not 

 to be aware of 

 it. Yet it must 

 be confessed we 

 are so far gone 

 in depravity 

 that there will 

 be t r o u b 1 e in 

 getting those 

 handles. The 

 three o r four 

 hundred that 

 were procured 



by C s Co. 



(that was in 



Maj. W d's 



time), thewhole 

 United States 

 were scoured 

 for. Mr. S e, 



now president, travelled or wrote far and near, and 

 the only available ash logs were "cut and hauled 

 twelve miles over the mountain to the saw-mill," in 

 Kentucky somewhere. This was a great engineer- 

 ing feat, but what man has done man may do. 

 Timber and ideas have been growing since that time, 

 and experiment-stations have been started in every 

 state. 



In a broadcast prayer of this public nature, ab- 

 solute specifications would not be polite. Black 

 walnut and butternut are fragrant as well beautiful 

 timber. Cherry is stiff, heavy, durable, and like 



