HOE ; HORSE-HOE. The hoe is an in strument used in gardens and fields for loos ening the earth, and destroying the weeds be tween plants. It has various forms. The most common hoe consists of a blade or flat piece of iron, with an eye in which an handle is inserted at an acute angle with the plane of the blade. This hoe is used by striking the edge of it down into the ground, and the earth is moved by drawing the handle towards the workman. Another hoe has the handle at a very obtuse angle, and is used by pushing it forward and cutting off the weeds an inch or less under the surface of the ground. Hoes are made of different sizes and shapes, accord ing to the work which is to be done. When the earth is to be stirred between plants which are very near each other, the hoe is narrow and pointed, so that the smallest weed may be taken out close to the growing plant. When the distance is considerable, the hoe is wide, and sometimes compounded of several hoes, in order to stir a greater width of earth at once.
One of the greatest improvements in prac tical agriculture has been the introduction of the hoe into the field for every kind of crop, consequent on the sowing of seeds in parallel rows. Hand-hoeing not having been found sufficiently expeditious on a large scale, a hoe has been invented of a larger form, to be drawn by a horse. The rows have in conse quence been widened, and this has introduced the horse-hoeing husbandry, which half a cen tury ago was thought so important a discovery as to receive the name of the New Husbandry, from its great improver, Jethro Tull. The
simple horse-hoe is an instrument with a beam like a plough, and two stilts or handles, but much lighter; in this beam is inserted, instead of a coulter, the end of an iron hoe, in the proper breadth to stir the whole surface between the rows. A small wheel is gene rally added to keep the hoe at a proper depth in the soil. Many varieties of horse-hoes have been invented of more or less complicated forms; but the object of them all is the same, viz., to stir the ground between the rows, and destroy the weeds as fast as they appear. The horse-hoe is now chiefly used in the cultiva tion of peas, beans, potatoes, cabbage, turnips and carrots.
One recent variety of this instrument is the Uxbridge Expanding Horse-hoe, made of wrought iron. There are two small wheel: behind, one in front, two handles, and seven hoes. These hoes are arranged in a peculiar manner. The frame to which the hoes arc fixed is expansive, that is, its outside bars arc moveable farther or nearer apart ; and by adjusting these bars, the cutting edges of the hoes are made to present different an ;les, according as circumstances may re quire.