|
By Laura Jean Whitcomb
Browse through an antiques shop and you’re likely to
see a variety of tools — some familiar and others
completely unrecognizable. Whether they were hand
tools, such as a saw, or gardening tools, such as
shovel, these implements were our ancestor’s most
important possessions. There weren’t any superstores
or mega-complexes of building and gardening supplies
— these tools were custom made and hard to come by.
Ancient Times, Early Tools
Michael P. Garofalo has compiled “The History of
Gardening: A Timeline from Ancient Times to the
Twentieth Century” on his Web site, www.
gardendigest.com. He notes that evidence from
archeological sites suggests that man had knowledge
of plants and plant gathering in 35,000 BC but did
not cultivate them.
Around 10,000 BC there is evidence of plant
domestication, but Garofalo says that “the first
society in which people were primarily dependent on
domesticated crops and livestock does not appear
until about 6,000 years ago.” According to The New
Oxford Book of Food Plants, certain cereals and
legumes were domesticated in ancient times. In about
8,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent of the Near and
Middle East (present-day Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey,
Jordan, Israel), wheat, barley, lentil, pea, bitter
vetch, chick-pea, and possibly faba bean, were
brought into cultivation by the Neolithic people.
The oldest tools in the world are those that have
been used for the cultivation of the land. Early
implements were primitive — and heavy.
It goes without saying that some of the oldest tools
in the world are those that have been used for the
cultivation of the land. Early implements were
primitive — and heavy. Tools were typically made by
the local blacksmith. There might have been local
design preferences (since each blacksmith had his
own creative eye) but the basic shapes haven’t
changed that much. It wasn’t until the early 1600s
that gardening tools became more popular, and not
quite as cumbersome.
After the Industrial Revolution, gardening became
the leisure occupation of middle-class town dwellers
and the manufacture of garden implements and the
mechanization of mowers began.
A Tool for Every Job
By the 1700s there was a tool for every purpose; in
fact most of the hand tools used in the garden today
were developed in this period. Early garden tool
catalogs listed hundreds of task-specific tools
including dibbers, mattocks, potato hoes, onion
hoes, daisy grubbers, claws, weeders, forcers,
straighteners, garden row markers, garden reels,
rakes, watering cans, water tanks, lawn mowers, lawn
rollers, weed whackers and many more, states
GardenOrnamenta, an English company that offers a
range of antique tools and artifacts that are for
use and for decoration.
Gardening was no longer a way to feed your family.
After the Industrial Revolution, gardening became
the leisure occupation of middle-class town dwellers
and the manufacture of garden implements and the
mechanization of mowers began. Soon, local
preferences disappeared and tools became
standardized — a trowel looked the same (a
semicircular piece of metal with a handle) for
gardeners across the globe.
Dibbers
It’s not a typo — it’s a tool. A dibber is a pointed
instrument for making holes in the ground. Early
planting was done by hand, and seeds would be thrown
onto the ground. Later, a dibber was used for some
crops. “A dibber was a board with holes evenly
spread apart,” explains world history teacher Eric
Rymer. “A stick would be pushed through the holes
and then a seed would be placed in the hole made by
the stick. This was very effective but also very
tedious and time consuming.”
But using a dibber meant a greater chance of
producing crops. Less seed was lost to birds and
other animals, and it was easier to weed a garden
when seeds were planted in rows. The idea developed
into the seed drill, an invention by Jethro Tull in
1701.
Dibbers are still used today by gardeners who want
to plant bulbs, but the Museum of Garden History (www.museumgardenhistory.org)
offers a look at antique dibbers from ivory and
brass “pricking-out tweezers with dibber end” from
the late 17th century to a Norwegian carved dibber
from the 18th century to a homemade dibber from old
spade handle, circa 1900.
Wheelbarrows
Not all inventions are British. The wheelbarrow, one
of the oldest carrying-devices invented by man, is
actually a Chinese invention.
A barrow is an ancient device that comes from the
word “bear,” as in to bear a load. A barrow is a
two-handled device — like a stretcher — on which two
people (one at each end) carried objects.
Chuko Liang (181-234 AD) of China is considered to
be the inventor of the wheelbarrow. According to
About.com, Liang was a general who used the
wheelbarrows to transport supplies and injured
soldiers. The Chinese wheelbarrows had two wheels
and, like the ancient barrow, required two men to
propel and steer.
Wheelbarrows made it to Europe in the 11th or 12th
century. “A stained-glass window at the Chartres
Cathedral in France dating from 1220 is believed to
be the earliest picture of a wheelbarrow in the
Western world. A manuscript illumination from 1286
shows the European wheelbarrow with a long and
graceful curve,” says Rick Shapiro, inventor and
owner of Virginia-based Pancake Wheeled Products,
which markets an ultra compact wheelbarrow. (Shapiro
studied the state of the art on wheelbarrows in
connection with his inventions.) “It was in Europe
that the design was reversed with the wheel moving
from the center to the front of the box, and the
motive power to the rear.”
Wikipedia defines a wheelbarrow as “a small one or
two-wheeled cart designed to be pushed by a single
person using two handles to the rear. They are
designed to ease the transport of heavy, often
loose, loads, and are common in the construction
industry and in gardening.” Today there are
two-wheel types (more stable) and one-wheel types
(better maneuverability). |
