what was this tool used for

[Gary_C]

Pitch fork, silage fork, cob fork, what ever you call that thing, it's not made for sticking in the ground. If you stab that thing in the ground and lift or pry like a spade, you will take the curl out of those tines. But then you can straighten them, unless they break.

The potato spades I've seen and used had four large heavy tines. You generally could not bend or break those heavy tines but you could break the handle if you really tried.

[beenthere]

I'm thinking that if a potato digger-like subsoiler was first passed through the patch and the soil loosened, then that tool might be used to lift potato's and dirt up, the dirt break up and fall off (or through) the tines, and the potato's stay for dumping into a box. Little potato's would fall with the dirt.
But then, that takes some imagination too. ;)

Doesn't look real handy for anything... but work.

[Dave Shepard]

It doesn't look too handy for that, either.  :D

[whitepine2]

 Might it have been used to pick up sea weed from the shore? Just my 2 cents don't seem like anyone has hit on it's use yet.

[sandhills]

Ok folks, we had a sale at the livestock barn today and our auctioneer works every type of sale you can imagine so I had to start asking.  I didn't have the picture but explained it as best I could, he said he's never seen one before but another guy in the conversation seemed to know what I was talking about, and said he saw a few of them sell just a few weeks earlier at an auction.  He said they called them leaf forks, meant for picking up piles of raked up leaves, I find this hard to believe, too offset and too awkward, you tell me  ???.  Just doesn't fit the bill if you ask me.  As far s the adjustment on the left side, I was thinking to lock the two sets of tines together once closed, is there another on the other side of the right tines?

[Gary_C]

I am pretty sure it's used for picking up loose piles of leaves, straw, hay, anything that's loose and hard to keep on a fork. Remember the days before leaf blowers and plastic bags when you had to move leaves any distance you had to use a bushel basket or wheelbarrow and the leaves kept rolling out?

That tool would be far better than a fork or two leaf rakes together for picking up leaf and straw litter. That's back in the days when you could start a pile of leaves smoldering on your lawn and then feed the smoldering mess with that thing-a-ma-jig.

Now days you take your bagger and lawnmower and mulch them or your leaf blower and send them to the neighbors. No need for that awkward thing.

[thecfarm]

I kinda doubt the leaf part. Years ago farming took the place of keeping the around the house tidy.

[LeeB]

It's for cleaning cow chips off a golf coarse. Why do you think they call the game pasture pool?

[Ron Wenrich]

I remember my great uncle telling me they used to farm up to the doorstep.  There was no such thing as lawns, let alone raking leaves.  I don't take to the potato forks either.  When we did potatoes, we had a single bottom plow that we used on the row.  We dragged it with a small tractor, which would have been a horse or mule before tractors.  Then, you simply grubbed around for the spuds.  Dragging a bunch of forks would have slowed things down.

[Jeff]

For a garden with a few hills of potatoes is what I was thinking No need for a mule,   I wish I had those things here, I;d be doing some testing and experimentation!

[Roxie]

My thought is that this was used to pull wool out of processing vats.  I can't find a picture to prove it, but here's a link that will give you an idea of what I was thinking. 

http://www.wool-bedding.com/how-we-make-wool-bedding.html

[sandhills]

That's very possible Roxie, it's fun reading all the ideas everyone has for this gadget.  Those vats look to be the right height for it to work also.

[Cedarman]

It is a head scratcher.   That's all I have seen anyone do with it.

[Jeff]

Roxie's idea looks like it would fit real well.

[Rocky_Ranger]

That "wool tool" looks promising.....  Not so sure it's the final answer but it's the best of the bunch so far.

[Roxie]

I'm picturing that vat being a tub (or trough) of hot water on the ground.  Extend the forks, put it in the tub and close to lift.  The offset may have been to fit the width of the tub, so the entire width was covered, rather than preventing the tines from synching. 

It could also have been used to pull clothes out of a tub, back in the old washboard days. 

[Dave Shepard]

I tried a Google Goggles search, all it found was this thread. :D

[Ron Wenrich]

I've tried a bunch of other angles.  I looked at some old harvesting videos on youtube.  I even tried looking in some of the old Sears catalogs.  No luck.  Maybe Roxie should ask some of the Amish that she drives around.  Chances are they know what its used for.

[Roxie]

Now I can't get the laundry thing out of my head.   :

My Grandfather's house had no electric or plumbing of any kind.  The bathroom was 1/4 mile up the hill behind the house.  They had several long oval galvanized tubs hanging on the kitchen wall.  They were used for bath's, and laundry.  On laundry day, the tubs were taken outside, and boiling water and lye soap (shaved from a bar with a knife) were in one tub.  The other two tubs had cold water.  After scrubbing in the hot soapy tub, laundry was lifted out and dunked in the second tub to rinse, and a final rinse in a third tub.  It was hung on the line dripping wet. 

What is the distance between the first tine and the last tine?  Those tubs were about 18" to 24" across the width, to accommodate a sitting adult. 

[Roxie]

Ron, I will ask some older Amish if they know. 

One time, as I was describing my Grandfather's tobacco farm (in the mountains of NC), an Amish elder said, "I wonder if our younger people would know how to live like that."  My grandfather didn't own a horse, much less a tractor.  Plowing was done by leading the milk cow through the field, and Pop Pop holding the plow point into the dirt.  Refrigeration was a stone spring house.  Water had to be carried inside by the gallon. 

[Jeff]

I'm thinking wool certainly possible, laundry highly unlikely. Clothes were not easy to come by in those times. Would you really want to use a device with sharp tines that has handles for leverage, to clamp down on a wad of your precious laundry potentially popping holes in all kinds of places?

[sandhills]

Well never mind, Jeff just took the words out of my mouth (almost)  ;D.  I think you're onto something with the wool and the vat size Roxie.

[Woodhauler]

Winner Winner chicken dinner!!!!  Showed the picture to my buddy today who is a antique dealer, he had no iodea!!!  Old guy that came from down south took one look at picture and said he used that for harvesting peanunts!!!!!!!!I have no reason to call him a lier!!

[Cedarman]

I could tell from the beginning this was a nut job.

[Den Socling]

I think peanuts come up with a bunch of roots so I can see a peanut picker.