Implements of Gardening.
562. The principal tools employed in horticnitural ope rations have already been mentioned incidentally ; but it may be proper in this place to enumerate them together, The spade may be first named, as the oldest and most indispensable garden tool. Besides common sized spades for delving, small spades are required for working in the flower-borders. The manufacture of spades is carried on to a great extent at Dalston near Carlisle ; at Gateshead, Newcastle ; Bedbu•n, near Durham ; Burton upon Trent ; and Ulverstone in Lancashire ; and of late years, some Scots forges, particularly those at Cramond, near Edin burgh, and Dalnottar, near Glasgow, have disputed, with those mentioned, the palm of excellence in this useful and important article of our iron manufacture. Shovels of dif ferent sorts are made at the same manufactories. Fiat ks are necessary for pointing over ground where it is impro per to use the spade : They are of different sizes, and some have flat and others rounded tines : asparagus-forks have been already mentioned (§353.) floes of different sizes are indispensable, with small weeding and thinning hoes, and also the sort called the Dutch hoe. Rakes of different sizes are necessary : for large ones, those in which the teeth are of iron, and the head of well-seasoned ash, are best ; and for small ones, those in which the teeth and head are formed of one solid piece of iron are to be preferred. Shears for clipping hedges, and a kind with bent handles for dressing grass verges, are not to be forgotten. A flit faced hammer, with large headed nails, both of wrought iron and of cast iron, and a stock of lists or roonds are re quisite for the nailing of wall-trees: as well as a proper wall-ladder, such as is described, § 245. Pruning, graft ing, and budding knives, with hand bills, chisels, and small saws, are indispensable. Some recently invented pruning instruments might here be noticed. One called the Ave runcator has a handle from 5 to 8 feet in length ; by means of a cord and pulley, a lever connected with a cutting blade is acted upon; so that a person standing on the ground may prune the greater part of ordinary sized trees. The
Pruning-shears are more easily managed, and are found very useful on many occasions, making the cuts more clean and neat than can be clone with any kind of knife. Both instruments take off branches an inch and a half in diameter with great ease. The form of the averuncator is given at Fig. 6. of Plate CCCXII., and of the pruning shears at Fig. 7. of the same Plate. Trowels of different sizes and shapes, with planting irons and dibbles, are all very useful implements. These, with scythes and paring irons, and similar instruments, are manufactured to a great extent at Sheffield ; and from the subdivision of labour there established, they are furnished at rates so cheap as Cannot fail in a great measure to command the market : but it is not to be disputed, regarding hoes and rakes in particular, that the blacksmiths of sonic towns not distin guished as manufacturing places, such as Edinburgh, pro duce these instruments of better materials, if not of neater workmanship. A garden reel and line is constantly need ed. Sieves of iron or of brass wire of different degrees of closeness are required, wherever attention is paid to the raising of exotic seedlings. Fumigating bellows are use ful for green-houses, vineries, and melon-frames. Where forcing is practised, or where a collection or stove-plants is kept, thermometers are necessary : those graduated to the scale of Fahrenheit are universally in use : what is called the botanical thermometer differs in no respect from another, excepting that some terms, such as " Ananas," are inscribed at the proper degrees on the sides of the scale. One thermometer is placed in the open air ; and in the centre of each of the hot-houses there is another : by comparing these, the of increasing or diminish ing the fire-heat, or the quantity of fuel, is regulated. Wa tering-pots are made by tinsmiths, with pipes of different lengths, and with roses more or less closely perforated : for watering delicate seedlings, pots with brass nozics fine ly perforated are used, producing an extremely light or minutely divided shower.