A variety of tools can help in the garden, add a new garden tool every year...

A wonderful thing about modern garden tools is the low prices at which they can be bought, especially compared with the amount labor saved in accomplishing results. The most modest of gardeners can acquire with a judicious annual budget, a very complete outfit of tools, over a few years, that will handsomely repay their cost.

Many garden tools have been improved and developed out of all resemblance to their ancient forms, others have changed little in generations. There are garden tools for use in every phase of horticultural operations:  Preparing the ground, planting the seed, cultivation, protecting crops from insects and disease, and harvesting.

An essential garden implement is the venerable spade, which is used to turn over and form small garden plots, borders, beds, etc. This is the initial operation in creating a gardening - breaking up the soil and/or turning over and mixing in manure or compost. There are several types of shovels and spades and just about anyone will answer the purpose. But what you want is a straight edged spade whose blade is of hardened stainless steel  The handle should be made of ash or hickory (metal is cold in the winter and fiberglass handles vibrate when used). Note that a forged socket or steel strapped head into which a tapered handle is fitted is the best and strongest method of joining handle and head.

In spading up ground, especially soil that is turfy or hard, you can make the work made easier by taking a strip about twice as wide as the spade, and then make diagonal cuts so that one vertical edge of the spade at each thrust cuts clean out to where the soil has already been dug.

The wide-tined spading-fork is frequently used instead of the spade. This tool is lighter and can often be more advantageously used when breaking up lumps and leveling off surfaces. In most soils it will do this work better than the spade and, of course, is serviceable as a fork, too. Becoming, in effect two tools in one. It should be more generally known and used. A fork, can be used for handling manure and gathering up trash and weeds, for example. A fork with oval, slightly up-curved tines, say, five or six in number, and topped 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 swivel 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 miniature furrow ahead of the plowshare, thus covering under all sods and grass and getting them out of the way of harrows and other tools to be used later.

In plowing under tall-growing green manures, like rye, a heavy chain is hung from the evener to the handle, thus pulling the crop down into the furrow so that it will all be covered under. 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.

TOOLS FOR PREPARING THE SEED-BED

The spade or spading-fork will be followed by the hoe, or hook, and the iron rake; and the plow by one or more of the various types of harrow. The best type of hoe for use after the spade is the wide, deep-bladed type. In most soils, however, this work may be done more expeditiously with the hook or prong-hoe.

With this the soil can be thoroughly pulverized to a depth of several inches. In using either, be careful not to pull up manure or trash turned under by the spade, as all such material if left covered will quickly rot away in the soil and furnish the best sort of plant food. I should think that our energetic manufactures would make a prong-hoe with heavy wide blades, like those of the spading-fork, but I have never seen such an implement, either in use or advertised.

What the prong-hoe is to the spade, the harrow is to the plow. For general purposes the Acme is an excellent harrow. It is adjustable, and for ground at all mellow, will be the only one necessary; set it, for the first time over, to cut in deep; and then, set for leveling, it will leave the soil in such excellent condition that a light hand- raking (or, for large areas, the Meeker smoothing-harrow) will prepare it for the finest of seeds, such as onions and carrots. The teeth of the Acme are so designed that they practically constitute a gang of miniature plows.

Of disc harrows there are a great many makes. The salient feature of the disc type is that they can tear up no manure, grass or trash, even when these are but partly turned under by the plow. For this reason it is especially useful on sod or other rough ground. The most convenient harrow for putting on the finishing touches, for leveling off and fining the surface of the soil, is the lever spike-tooth. It is adjustable and can be used as a spike-tooth or as a smoothing harrow.

Any of the harrows mentioned above (except the Meeker) and likewise the prong-hoe, will have to be followed by the iron rake when preparing the ground for small-seeded garden vegetables. Get the sort with what is termed the "bow" head instead of one in which the head is fastened directly to the end of the handle. It is less likely to break, and easier to use.

There is quite a knack in manipulating even a garden rake, which will come only with practice. Do not rake as though you were gathering up leaves or grass. The secret in using the garden rake is "not" to gather things up. Small stones, lumps of earth and such things, you of course wish to remove. Keep these raked off ahead of where you are leveling the soil, which is accomplished with a backward-and-forward movement of the rake.

The tool-house of every garden of any size should contain a seed-drill. Work. which is otherwise tedious and difficult. is rendered mere play with a seed-drill - as well as being better done. The operations of marking the row, opening the furrow, dropping the seed at the proper depth and distance, covering immediately with fresh earth, and firming the soil, are all done at one fell swoop and as fast as you can walk. It will even drop seeds in hills. But that is not all: it may be purchased as part of a combination machine, which, after your seeds are planted - with each row neatly rolled on top, and plainly visible - may be at once transformed into a wheel hoe that will save you as much time in caring for your plants as the seed-drill did in planting your seed. Hoeing drudgery becomes a thing of the past.

Valuable as the wheel hoe is, however, and varied in its scope of work, the time-tried hoe cannot be entirely done away with. The scuffle-hoe, or scarifier, which completes the four, is used between narrow rows for shallow work, such as cutting off small weeds and breaking up the crust. It has been rendered less frequently needed by the advent of the wheel hoe, but when crops are too large to admit of the use of the latter, the scuffle-hoe is still an indispensable time-saver.

There remains one task connected with gardening that is a bug-a-bear. That is hand-weeding. To get down on one's hands and knees, in the blistering hot, dusty soil, with the perspiration trickling down into one's brow, and pick small weedlets from among tender plantlets, is not a pleasant occupation.

There are, however, several sorts of small weeders which lessen the work considerably. One or another of the common types will seem preferable, according to different conditions of soil and methods of work. Personally, I prefer the Lang's for most uses. The angle blade makes it possible to cut very near to small plants and between close-growing plants, while the strap over the back of a finger or thumb leaves the fingers free for weeding without dropping the instrument.

There are two things to be kept in mind about hand-weeding which will reduce this work to the minimum. First, never let the weeds get a start. Second, do your hand-weeding while the surface soil is soft, when the weeds come out easily. A hard-crusted soil will double and treble the amount of labor required.

Another suggestion is that your tools should always be carefully kept, bright, clean and sharp, and in repair. Obvious advice, but one too often ignored.

Always have a piece of cloth or old bag on hand where the garden tools are kept, and never put them away soiled and wet. Keep cutting edges sharp. There is as little pleasure in running a dull lawnmower as there is in working with a rusty, battered hoe. Have an extra handle in stock in case one gets broken; they are not expensive.

In selecting hand tools, always pick out those with handles in which the grain does not run out at the point where there will be much strain in using the tool. In rakes, hoes, etc., get the types with ferrule and shank one continuous piece, so as not to be annoyed with loose heads.

Spend a few cents to send for some implement catalogues. They will well repay a careful perusal, even if you do not order this year.

FOR FIGHTING PLANT ENEMIES

The devices and implements used for fighting plant enemies are of two types:  (1) Those used to afford mechanical protection to the plants. And (2) those used to apply insecticides and fungicides. Of the first catagory, the most useful is the covered frame. It consists usually of a wooden box, some eighteen inches to two feet square and about eight high, covered with glass, protecting cloth, mosquito netting or mosquito wire. The first two coverings have, of course, the additional advantage of retaining heat and protecting small plants from cold. These make it possible, by their use, to plant earlier than is otherwise safe. They are used extensively in getting an extra early and safe start with cucumbers, melons and other vine vegetables.

Simpler devices for protecting newly-set plants, such as tomatoes or cabbage, from the cut-worm, are stiff, tin, cardboard or tar paper collars, which are made several inches high and large enough to be put around the stem and penetrate an inch or so into the soil.

For applying poison powders, such as dry Paris green, hellebore and tobacco dust, the home gardener should supply himself with a powder gun. If one must be restricted to a single implement, however, it will be best to get one of the hand-power, compressed-air sprayers - either a knapsack pump or a compressed-air sprayer. These are used for applying wet sprays, and should be supplied with one of the several forms of mist-making nozzles, the non- cloggable automatic type being the best.

For more extensive work a barrel pump, mounted on wheels, will be desirable, but one of the above will do a great deal of work in little time. Extension rods for use in spraying trees and vines may be obtained for either. For operations on a very small scale a good hand-syringe may be used, but generally, it is best to invest a few dollars more and get a small tank sprayer, as this throws a continuous stream or spray and holds a much larger amount of the spraying solution. Whatever type is procured, get a brass machine - it will out-wear three or four of those made of cheaper metal.

Of implements for harvesting, beside the spade, prong-hoe and spading- fork already mentioned, very few are used in the small garden, as most of them need not only long rows to be economically used, but horse- power as well. The onion harvester attachment for the double wheel hoe, costing $1.00, may be used to advantage in loosening onions, beets, turnips, etc., from the soil or for cutting spinach. Running the hand- plow close on either side of carrots, parsnips and other deep-growing vegetables will aid materially in getting them out. For fruit picking, with tall trees, the wire-fingered fruit-picker, secured to the end of a long handle, will be of great assistance. But with the modern method of using low-headed trees it may not be needed.

Another class of garden implements are those used in pruning. A good sharp jack-knife and a pair of pruning shears (the English makes are the best) will easily handle all the work of the kind necessary.

Another kind of garden device is used for supporting plants:  Stakes, trellises, wires, etc. Too little attention is given these, which, with proper care in storing over winter, will not only last for years, but add greatly to the convenience of cultivation and to the neat appearance of your garden. Various contrivances are illustrated in the seed catalogues, and many may be home-made - such as a stake-trellis for supporting beans.

A final word to the intending purchaser of garden tools:  First thoroughly investigate the different sorts available, and when buying, do not forget that a good tool or a well-made machine will be giving you satisfactory use long, long after the price is forgotten. A poor tool is a constant source of discomfort. Get good tools, and take good care of them.

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