The Spade
The spade is a tool that is designed for removing soil or digging. Some of the first spades were made of graven wood. When metal working was discovered spades began to have sharp tips of metal. Manual labor was very inefficient before metal spades were invented. Picks were required to break up the soil and the spade was used to move the dirt. With metal spades both jobs could be done with one tool.
The spade comes in many different shapes and sizes, each designed for a specific job or function. The garden spade is the most common. It has a long handle, a wide head and is treaded, meaning it has a rest for your foot so you can drive it into the ground. A smaller version of the spade is called an Irish spade. This has a thinner head. Another type of spade is called a turfing iron, which has a round, short head and is mainly used for parring and cutting off turf. A digging fork or more commonly referred to as a grape, has forks much like a pitchfork and is normally used to loosen the ground.
When it comes to gardening, the spade is a hand tool used for digging and loosening soil or to break up clumps of soil. When used along side the forked version, they form one of the backbones of hand implements used in agriculture and horticulture. Even though it is considered a type of shovel, the spade is a broad flat blade which has a sharp lower edge, straight or curved. The uppers edges have rests for foot placement so you can drive it into the ground. The handle has a T-shaped, cross piece which forms a kind of loop for the hand.