By all means invest a few dollars in a combination wheel hoe, 
hill and drill seeder, cultivator and plow combined 
With a double wheel hoe you can cultivate both sides of a row of 
plants at once and as quickly as you can walk 
Garden Tools That Pay Their Way 
THE IMMENSE SAVING OF LABOR THAT MAY BE BROUGHT ABOUT BY A 
JUDICIOUS INVESTMENT IN THE RIGHT KINDS OF GARDENING IMPLEMENTS 
by Frederic de Rocheville 
Photographs by E. R. Rollins, the author and others 
I F all people who have no gardens of their own knew how the 
labor of gardening has been lessened by modern implements 
this year, there would be several hundred thousand tons less of 
stale and wilted vegetables carted, hauled, stored, handled, 
jounced about, and delivered to and through the market. 
Your modern gardener is not necessarily bent at the knees 
and bowed at the shoulders, with knuckles the size of a stump- 
rooted carrot. He may even, if lie is fool enough to prefer style 
to comfort, perform many of the' garden operations that erst¬ 
while were drudgery, in creased trousers and a clean white collar. 
While some garden tools have been improved and developed 
out of all resemblance to their original forms, others have 
changed little in generations and in all probability will remain 
ever with us. There is a thing or two to say about even the sim¬ 
plest of them — especially to anyone not famil¬ 
iar with their uses, and so 1 shall go gnroug'h 
the whole list. 
There are tools for use in every phase of 
hordcultural operations; for preparing the 
ground, for planting the seed, for cultivation, 
for protecting crops from insects and dis¬ 
ease, and for harvesting. It is with the first 
three of these only, how y ever, that the pres¬ 
ent article deals. 
First of all comes the ancient and honor¬ 
able spade, which, for small garden plots, 
herders, beds, etc., must still be relied upon 
for the initial operation in gardening — break¬ 
ing up the soil. There are several types, but 
ary will answer the purpose. In buying a 
spade, look out for two things : see that it is 
well strapped up the handle, in front and 
back (see illustration), and that it hangs well. 
In spading up ground, especially soil that is 
turfy or hard, the work may be made easier 
by taking a strip not quite twice as wide as 
the spade, and making diagonal cuts so that 
one edge of the spade at each thrust cuts clean out to where the 
soil has already been dug. The wide-tined spading-fork is fre¬ 
quently used instead of the spade, as it is lighter and can be more 
advantageously used to break up lumps and level off surfaces. In 
most soils it will do this work as well as, if not better than, the 
spade, and has the further good quality of being serviceable as a 
fork too, thus combining two tools in one. It should be more 
generally known and used. With the ordinary fork, used for 
handling manure and gathering up trash, weeds and so forth, 
every gardener is familiar. The type with oval, slightly up- 
curved tines, five or six in number, and a “D” handle, is the most 
convenient and comfortable for garden use. 
For areas large enough for a horse to turn around in, use a 
plow. There are many good makes. The reversible type has 
the advantage of turning all the furrows 
one way, and is the best for small plots and 
sloping ground. It should turn a clean, 
deep furrow. In deep soil that has long 
been cultivated, plowing should, with few 
exceptions, be down at least to the subsoil; 
and if the soil is shallow it will be advisable 
to turn up a little of the subsoil at each 
plowing — not more than an inch, in order 
that the soil may gradually be deepened. In 
plowing sod it will be well to have the plow 
fitted with a ‘‘coulter,” which turns a minia¬ 
ture furrow ahead of the plowshare, thus^ 
covering under all sod and grass and getting 
them out of the way of harrows and other 
tools to be used later. Where, drainage is 
poor it will be well to break up the subsoil 
with a subsoil plow, which follows in the 
wake of the regular plow, but does not lift 
the subsoil to the surface. 
The spade or spading-fork will be fol¬ 
lowed by the hoe, or hook, and the iron 
rake ; and the plow by one or more of the 
A type of hand-weeder that the 
author has found most convenient 
( 254 ) 
