44 
BULLETIN 1457, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
blade about 9 inches long, set rigidly at an angle of approximately 
105° into a round wooden handle some 18 inches long. One of the 
most efficient pruning tools seen in Egypt was a thin-bladed hatchet 
with a round cutting edge (fig. 7), which is used in all the upper 
Giza region. A smith in Mit Riheina, a village on the site of 
ancient Memphis, makes most of the tools in the entire district. 
Pig. 7. — Hatchet used by workmen in upper Giza Province, Egypt, for pruning dates. 
(One-half natural size) 
They may be of solid steel or with only a steel bit laid into iron. 
The sample purchased weighs 2 pounds 15 ounces with the handle, 
but this is too heavy. The favorite hatchets used by the tree primers 
of the district would not weigh more than 2 pounds. The thinness 
of the blade is carried back nearly to the e}^e, while the hammerlike 
head gives the balance. A light blow on each side of the rib sends it 
down, leaving a fishtail notch in the end of the petiole. 
A later pruning takes off the broad base of the leafstalk, which is 
used for fuel or occasionally for the trees of the camel packsaddle, 
