Book excerpt: In thousands of years of tilling the soil, we have created a great variety of garden tools to dig, cut scrub, harrow fields, and trim borders. What makes the tools unique, and collectible, is the way function has dictated form, resulting in not only ingenious shapes, but artistic ones. In the 19th and early 20th centuries garden tool catalogues listed hundreds of task-specific tools including dibbers, mattocks, potato hoes, onion hoes, daisy grubbers, claws, weeders, forcers, straighteners, garden row markers, garden reels, rakes, watering cans, water tanks, lawn mowers, lawn rollers, weed whackers, and many more. This book looks back at two hundred years of garden history, and attempts to identify the tools and accessories that gardeners used, and as much as possible identify their specific functions. With over 750 colour photographs, concise captions, and a guide to prices in today's antique marketplace, this is a useful as well as beautiful exploration of garden implements.