A garden tool is any one of many tools made for gardens and gardening and overlaps with the range of tools made for agriculture and horticulture. Garden tools can also be hand tools and power tools.

The hand tools still used by gardeners originated with the earliest agricultural implements used by man: the spade, the garden hoe, the pitchfork, the garden fork, the garden rake and the plough. The earliest tools were made of wood, flint and bone.

The development of metal working, first in copper and later in iron and steel, enabled the manufacture of more durable tools. Industrial metalworking enabled the manufacture of cutting tools, including pruning shears, grass shears and secateurs.

The first power tool to become popular with gardeners was the lawn mower. This has been followed by a very wide range of power tools, including cultivators, string trimmer, sprinklers, hedge trimmers, lawn aerators, leaf sweepers, leaf blowers and mini-tractors.

Hand tools

The first person to turn from the hunting and gathering lifestyle to farming probably did so by using his bare hands, and perhaps some sticks or stones. Tools such as knives, scythes, and wooden plows were eventually developed, and dominated agriculture for thousands of years. During this time, almost everyone worked in agriculture, because each family could barely raise enough food for themselves with the limited technology of the day.

The Industrial Revolution

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the development of more complicated machines, farming methods took a great leap forward. Instead of harvesting grain by hand with a sharp blade, wheeled machines cut a continuous swath. Instead of threshing the grain by beating it with sticks, threshing machines separated the seeds from the heads and stalks.

Steam power

These machines required a lot of power, which was originally supplied by horses or other domesticated animals. With the invention of steam power came the portable engine and later the traction engine, a multipurpose, mobile energy source that was the ground-crawling cousin to the steam locomotive. Agricultural steam engines took over the heavy pulling work of horses, and were also equipped with a pulley that could power stationary machines via the use of a long belt. The steam-powered behemoths were low-powered by today's standards but, because of their size and their low gear ratios, they could provide a large drawbar pull. Their slow speed led farmers to comment that tractors had two speeds: "slow, and darn slow."

The internal combustion engine

Gasoline, and later diesel engines became the main source of power for the next generation of tractors. These engines also contributed to the development of the self-propelled, combined harvester and thresher, or combine for short. Instead of cutting the grain stalks and transporting them to a stationary threshing machine, these combines cut, threshed, and separated the grain while moving continuously through the field.

Types

Combines might have taken the harvesting job away from tractors, but tractors still do the majority of work on a modern farm. They are used to pull implements—machines that till the ground, plant seed, or perform a number of other tasks.

Tillage implements prepare the soil for planting by loosening the soil and killing weeds or competing plants. The best-known is the plow, the ancient implement that was upgraded in 1838 by a man named John Deere. Plows are actually used less frequently in the U.S. today, with offset disks used instead to turn over the soil and chisels used to gain the depth needed to retain moisture.

The most common type of seeder is called a planter and spaces seeds out equally in long rows, which are usually 2 to 3 feet apart. Some crops are planted by drills, which put out much more seed in rows less than a foot apart, blanketing the field with crops. Transplanters fully or partially automate the task of transplanting seedlings to the field. With the widespread use of plastic mulch, plastic mulch layers, transplanters, and seeders lay down long rows of plastic, and plant through them automatically.

After planting, other implements can be used to cultivate weeds from between rows, or to spread fertilizer and pesticides. Hay balers can be used to tightly package grass or alfalfa into a storable form for the winter months.

Modern irrigation also relies on a great deal of machinery. A variety of engines, pumps and other specialized gear are used to provide water quickly and in high volumes to large areas of land. Similar types of equipment can be used to deliver fertilizers and pesticides.

And, besides the tractor, a variety of vehicles have been adapted for use in various aspects of farming, including trucks, airplanes, and helicopters, for everything from transporting crops and making equipment mobile, to aerial spraying and livestock herd management.