Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/191

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and its Green Border-Land.
177

First on the list of the Brades manufactory, as a special distinction, are their famous trowels, which in their line of use and excellence arc equal to the celebrated Toledo blades in the implemental machinery of war. They are fully as clastic as any sword-blades, and can be bent double either way without a permanent crook. Plantation hoes rank next to trowels in their celebrity. Vast quantities are sent both to the United States and Brazil; those for the latter country are full twice the weight of the former. As they are for the cultivation of cotton in both countries, this difference in size and weight is rather singular. The union of machine labour in their production has been brought to great perfection. The rolling-mill and trip-hammer do the greatest part of the work. In the first place, the moulds or patterns are formed. The cast-steel is edged, or champered, in the bar, then cut into lengths of three or four inches to correspond with the width of the hoc-pattern. The borax weld is often made complete at one heat, and never more than two are taken. This operation is performed by the common hand-sledge and hammer; and nothing but a firm weld of the steel to the iron is sought for. The pattern or form thus steeled goes next to the great trip-hammer, which brings it out to its required size and thickness. Thence it is taken to the anvil of the smith-shop, where the eye is formed with