A farmer using a hoe to keep weedsdown in a vegetable garden.

Cultivating tool pull or draw hoe

Cultivating tool push or thrust hoe

Hoe (tool)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A hoe is an ancient and versatile agricultural tool used to movesmall amounts of soil. Common goals include weed control byagitating the surface of the soil around plants, piling soil aroundthe base of plants (hilling), creating narrow furrows (drills) andshallow trenches for planting seeds and bulbs, to chop weeds,roots and crop residues, and even to dig or move soil, such aswhen harvesting root crops like potatoes.

Contents1 Classes2 Types3 History4 Archaeological use5 See also6 References7 Further reading8 External links

ClassesThere are two classes of hoe: pull or draw hoes; and push or thrusthoes, also called Dutch hoes.

A pull hoe has the blade set at approximately a right angle to theaxis of the rod used as a handle. The user forces the blade into theground with a downward chopping action and then pulls (draws)the blade towards them. Altering the angle of the handle can causethe hoe to dig deeper or more shallowly as the hoe is pulled. Apull hoe can easily be used manually to cultivate soil to a depth ofseveral inches. It is not easy to use a pull hoe to cultivate andremove weeds etc. from only the surface layer of the soil.

A push hoe has the blade set in a plane slightly inclined to the axisof the rod used as a handle. The user uses the handle to push theblade forward, forcing it below the surface of the ground andmaintaining it at a shallow depth in the surface layer of soil byaltering the angle of the handle whilst pushing. A push hoe caneasily cultivate and remove weeds etc. from the surface layer ofthe soil. It is not easy to use a push hoe to manually to cultivatesoil to a depth of more than a fraction of an inch.

Types

A Dutch hoe or push hoe; usuallyattached to a long hilt and handle

Hoedad (tree-planting tool) KaibabNational Forest, Arizona, USA

There are many types of blades of quite different appearances andpurposes. Some can perform multiple functions. Others areintended for a specific use. Types of hoes include:

The collinear hoe has a narrow, razor-sharp blade which isused to slice weeds by skimming it just above the surface ofthe soil with a sweeping motion; it is unsuitable for taskslike soil moving and chopping.

The typical farming and gardening hoe with a heavy, broaddelta-shaped blade and a flat edge is the Dego hoe.

The Dutch hoe (scuffle, action, oscillating, swivel, or Hula-Ho) is a design that is pushed or pulled through the soil tocut weeds just under the surface. Its tool-head is a loop offlat, sharpened strap metal. It is not as efficient as achopping hoe for pulling or pushing soil.

Hoedads (also, "hoedags") are hoe-like tools used forplanting trees.[1] According to Hartzell (1987, p. 29), "Thehoedag [was] originally called skindvic hoe... HansRasmussen, legendary contractor and timber farm owner, iscredited with having invented the curved, convex, round-nosed hoedag blade which is widely used today" (emphasisadded).[2]

Stirrup hoes are designed with a double edge blade that bends around to form a stirrup likerectangle attached to the handle. Weeds are cut just below the soil surface as the blade is pushed &pulled through the area. The back and forth motion is highly effective with cutting weeds in loose orbreakable soil. Widths of the stirrup blade typically range between three to seven inches.

Wheel hoes are, as the name suggests, a hoe or pair of hoes attached to one or more wheels. Thehoes are frequently interchangeable with other tools.[3]

HistoryHoes are an ancient technology, predating the plough and perhaps preceded only by the digging stick. InSumerian mythology, the invention of the hoe was credited to Enlil, the chief of the council of gods.[4] Thehand-plough (mr) was depicted in predynastic Egyptian art, and hoes are also mentioned in ancientdocuments like the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 18th century BC) and the Book of Isaiah (c. 8th century BC).

The human damage caused by long-term use of short-handled hoes, which required the user to bend overfrom the waist to reach the ground, and caused permanent, crippling lower back pain to farm workers,resulted in the California Supreme Court declaring the short-handled hoe to be an unsafe hand tool thatwas banned under California law in 1975.[5] The short-handled hoe that Governor Jerry Brown gave toCésar Chávez in 1975 was displayed in the California Hall of Fame in 2006.[citation needed]

'Mr' hand-plough,Protodynastic Period ofEgypt (from theScorpion Macehead)

Ancient Greek iron hoe(KerameikosArchaeologicalMuseum)

A 2000-year-old ironRoman hoe blade

Shennong the DivineFarmer (Han Dynasty,2nd century)

Hilling (Japanese UneT) for scallions,ploughed by rotarytiller or hoe (2007)

Archaeological useOver the past fifteen or twenty years, hoes have become increasingly popular tools for professionalarchaeologists. While not as accurate as the traditional trowel, the hoe is an ideal tool for cleaning relativelylarge open areas of archaeological interest. It is faster to use than a trowel, and produces a much cleanersurface than an excavator bucket or shovel-scrape, and consequently on many open-area excavations theonce-common line of kneeling archaeologists trowelling backwards has been replaced with a line ofstooping archaeologists with hoes.

See alsoMattockRake (tool)PitchforkHoe-farmingHoedads Reforestation Cooperative

References "Hoe (implement)". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.

1. ^ Nix, Steve (2008, May 28). "Hoedads: The Tool, The Cooperative"(http://forestry.about.com/b/2008/05/28/hoedads-the-tool-the-cooperative.htm). About.com.

2. ^ Hartzell, Hal Jr. (1987). Birth of a Cooperative: Hoedads, Inc. A Worker Owned Forest Labor Co-op.Eugene, OR: Hulogos'i Communications. p. 29. ISBN 0-938493-09-4.

3. ^ Power Farming (http://books.google.com/books?id=4dk1AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA191). Power Farming,Incorporated. 1919. p. 191. Retrieved 10 July 2013.

4. ^ PBS. Heritage: Civilization and the Jews. "Nippur(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/episode1/atlas/map2.html#)". Accessed 26 Nov 2012.

5. ^ PBS. Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle. "[1](http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fightfields/book1.html)". Accessed 13 Dec 2012.

Further readingEvans, Chris, “The Plantation Hoe: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Commodity, 1650–1850,”William and Mary Quarterly, (2012) 69#1 pp 71–100.

External links"Scuffle hoe" or "Dutch hoe" as defined by Memidex/WordWeb dictionary/thesaurus(http://www.memidex.com/dutch-hoe)

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