Noting A. B. Tarryer's forms of weed hoes (May, p. 263), I send you outlines of the blades of four hoes*I have made and used in my own work. It will be observed that all of my hoes have an important improvement in the little double point. All these hoes penetrate the soil as easily as single pointed hoes. The advantages of the double points are several; they pick out single weeds, saving bending the back and using the fingers. I call them my finger hoes, for the work they do in this respect is better and more quickly done than with any other form of hoe. They do not glance off and turn aside as single points do, but cut the root or resisting object, and penetrate the soil with a steady motion. I keep them sharp with a file. Nos. 1 and 2 I use for stirring the soil and for the general purposes of a weed hoe, and Nos. 3 and 4 for more delicate work among close rows of plants. While at work with these hoes I can perform the labor so much more rapidly and with so much less expenditure of force, that if I were again a boy, I could not feel that old dull tired feeling that every boy experiences when set to hoeing "pusly" in the garden. There is an intellectual interest in the work in connection with such tools.

Nos. 2 and 4 were made out of common hoes. - D. S. Marvin.