Tools of the Countryside
Now in mid-May the claims of the land dispossess those ofsthe river. The cow's parsley is flowering among the nut bushes, dandelions in the orchard ; and both must be guillotined before they seed. The river rake must hang idle upon the wall ; the scythe be taken down for morning. duty. Both are beautifully balanced weapons, perfectly fitted to their purposes. I never handle such tools without reflecting what long experi- ence and tested craftsmanship have gone to their forming. A week or two ago, at the British Industries Fair at Castle Bromwich, among the giant earth-moving machines, the pageantry of shining steel alloys and copper, my eyes were caught by a display of rural implements—axes and slashers, billhooks and brushing hooks. It recalled a morning spent in a Midland factory, whose forging of scythes went back beyond memory or record. ,I learned, there,. that a blade, which I had ignorantly supposed to be a single strip of steel, was in fact compounded of three separate metals; cunningly sandwiched together, the cutting edge of blister steel made in-Sheffield of Swedish hammered iron.
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