314 
The Garden Magazine, February, 1921 
Especially suitable 
for large stretches 
as in the vegetable 
plot, the pipe-line 
Skinner system 
may be installed at 
heights to suit 
The Campbell wa- 
ter fan oscillating 
on any desired arc 
by the force of 
the water pushing 
through will under 
normal conditions 
“rain” over a io ft. 
width, up to a dist- 
ance of 50 ft. 
trowel is a trowel — just that, and nothing more. Yet a moment’s 
use will convince that the long, narrow “Slim Jim” type is 
infinitely better adapted for “thinning-out” in the row's than the 
broad plant ingtrow'el that liftstoowide a spread, and where much 
bulb planting is done an extra broad, extra short tool is a comfort 
and relief. There are spades and shovels: the one stout, straight, 
with an even cutting edge, that will penetrate the compacted 
earth; the other a scoop set at a different angle for lifting; yet 
how often do we see the beginner equipped with a shovel trying 
to dig? And dig, in the sense of tillage, he cannot with such a 
tool. Use a spade for digging, and a shovel for shoveling or 
scooping. 
When so obvious a mistake is made in a tool of elementary 
type it is no wonder that the proper appreciation of more re- 
fined implements is confused. The variety of such that the 
present day gardener has before him is bewildering to the new 
comer, yet it may be accepted as a truism that every one has 
its real use and will do some one job at least particularly well. 
The big question is what is the job in your garden that irks most 
and is there a tool to ease it? 
Broadly speaking, tools that help may be divided into dis- 
tinct groups: 
1. Tools to till the land. 
2. Accessories to actual planting operations. 
3. Machines of defense against insects or fungus diseases. 
4. Tools of maintenance. 
Those that compose the second group enter very little into 
the work of the home gardener, and may, for this reason, be 
eliminated from present discussion. Plant-setting machinery, 
fertilizer sowers, seeding machinery, etc., are implements largely 
called for by growers interested in quantity production. Their 
usefulness is limited almost entirely to market gardeners. 
The simplest job in the garden — digging — becomes hard work, 
if you attempt to do it with the wrong tool. Spading with a 
shovel, or shoveling w'ith a spade, makes the initial effort a hard- 
ship. Heavy soils call for a spade; light soils are better handled 
with a spading fork made like a skeleton spade with flat tines; 
then the round tine fork is used for lifting and tossing light 
material only. Because of the great difference in soils, even on 
one and the same estate, every initial garden-making equip- 
ment should contain both spading fork and spade. 
Then there is the pickaxe, the two-pronged form of it called 
grubbing-hoe, the rake, trowel, garden-line, w'ooden labels for 
marking rows, a strong knife, raffia or soft twine, possibly two 
types of cultivators (the cutting-blade, and the tooth) which 
make the maximum output of real work. If you ask “Why a 
pickaxe?” remember that it not only breaks but lifts obstacles 
and is invaluable in clearing, and in the skilled hands of some 
classes of emigrant labor it is a veritable “do all” to dig, pulver- 
ize, rake, level, make furrows, hill; and is after all merely the 
primitive pointed stick made into iron and set with a handle. 
Two extreme forms of 
trowel. Obviously the nar- 
row, long tool is superior 
for the purpose shown; 
and the broad short one 
for bulb planting 
Gasoline power applied to the lawn mower 
in various models to operate the knives and 
to propel the machine over the ground 
