Perhaps We Could Have A "Spovel"

Digging is not one of my favourite occupations in the garden, to say the least, but what with one thing and another there seems to be a lot of it to be done. When you are doing building project, you can be moving literally tons of soil, sand, and crushed stone by hand. In fact, if most of us were not so stubborn in wanting to do the project ourselves, we would find a couple of local burly teenagers to do the heavy work. Some might suggest a backhoe, but when you see the way some of the drivers operate these behemoths, you don't want one anywhere near your flower beds, and, replacing trampled shrubs, and damaged fences somehow takes the shine out of your project. A small rototiller can do a lot of the work for you, but there is no replacement for a spade.

Spade, shovel, shovel, spade, spovel...what is the difference? It always appears that when I send my current helper for one, I get the other. I recently found an interesting explanation that I would like to share with you

About 80 years ago, a man named Frederick Winslow Taylor, Me., Sc.D., approached the subject of shoveling scientifically. Taylor, who is known as the Father of Scientific Management, professed to believe that "every single act of every workman can be reduced to a science." What this was to mean to the poor glassy-eyed assembly line drone of the future that bore the weight of his theories doesn't bear thinking about. But to me, waiting for my back to unkink after a day's overexertion, Taylor's idea has a certain horrid fascination.

Taylor conducted his investigations at the Bethlehem Steel Works in Pittsburgh where about 600 workmen were engaged in full time shoveling. Taylor's first job was basic- - to figure out the optimum load per shameful. He concluded that, after many trials involving first class shovelers, that by lifting exactly 21 pounds - not 18, not 24, a man could move the maximum tonnage each day.

But a shovel that would hold 21 pounds of ore, say, was bound to be a lot smaller than one carrying 21 pounds of ashes or rice. Traditionally, workers owned their shovels, and they varied in size. Taylor quickly realized this was not efficient, so after thousands of time and motion studies covering materials to be shoveled, pitch, shovel size, and way of holding the shovel, he was ready to institute some radical changes.

His results were impressive. He reported that after three years of his new shoveling, the plant was able to reduce the number of shovelers from 600 to 140. Where the average cost of shoveling was 7 cents per ton, it dropped to 3.3 cents. Now, it would appear we are getting off track. The monetary aspects of this would appeal to Joseph, and I am sure I will not hear the end of the subject having been the one to raise it.

No self respecting Englishman would dig with a shovel. We need a spade, and a hand drop forged spade is the mark of a gardener who knows what he is about. A spade is about 5 to 7 inches wide and about 7 to 11 inches long (depending if your task is in the border or in the garden generally). The lead edge is straight and sharpened and preferably has a heavy thickness "forged." The total length is about 36 inches. For heavy work, a spade with a "D" handle is used. For lighter border work, a "T" handle is less cumbersome. This is the workhorse tool for digging and soil preparation-- not to be confused with the action of moving large amounts of whatever. Now a shovel, on the other hand, is a different beast. The material of the blade is lighter. The edges of the blade are curved to maximize the pick up potential. The handle is long with no grip at the end. (This is why digging with a shovel will quickly give you generous numbers of blisters.) Here in America you have the pointed shovel, which attempts to give the best of both worlds.

Now don't get excited. It would appear that the British or more precisely the Welsh had the idea first. A 100 years ago in the Abergavenny Chronicle, a local correspondent to the Chronicle urged the Monmouthshire County Council to provide longer handled shovels for their road men in accordance with workers on Cardiganshire and Carmathenshire "so that they do not have to work with bended back for extended periods of time."

A recent discovery from the steel forgers at Bulldog is that they make a shovel similar to the American one, but it has very close links with the early relatives of our shovels dating back 150 years. Would you believe that it is only exported to the U.S.? Oh well!

To us English the shovel and the spade are as different as the teaspoon and soupspoon.