Fork.
An implement with prongs for lifting, digging, carrying, or throwing.
Its uses may be principally included under the heads of
agricultural and
husbandry uses and
domestic uses.
Of the former are: —
Dung or
manure forks.
Horse hay-forks.
Digging-forks.
Grain-forks.
Hay-forks.
Pitch-forks.
Of the domestic are: —
Culinary or
flesh forks.
Table-forks.
1. The fork of the husbandman is shown on the
Egyptian tombs, and referred to in the
Book of Judges, 1093 B. C.: “Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the colters, and for the forks.”
The pitch-fork is used for grain in the straw or sheaf, hay, and manure.
It has from two to four teeth, according to its purpose.
The four-pronged is used for manure, the others for straw, sheaves, or hay.
Another form of grain-fork (
a) is of wood, the operative end being slit into three prongs, which are held apart by wedges and braced by rods.
It is used in delivering the gavel of grain from the platform of the reaping-machine, and is preferred for the reason that its tines do not injure the platform, or offer so much danger to the person or the machine as do sharp iron tines.
In the scenes where the thrashing of grain is represented on the tombs of
Egypt, we see several instances of the three-pronged fork.
It appears to be of wood, the end split into three tines, which are held apart in some way, perhaps, as with us, by wedges.
The digging-fork has four flat steel tines, and is a very effective tool.
The pitch-fork has two or three long, round tines, and is used for pitching hay or sheaves.
The barley-fork is a peculiar fork having a guard on the head, and used for pitching gavels of short grain without binding.
The horse hay-fork is designed to obviate the great labor of pitching hay from the wagon into the mow, or from the wagon or the ground into the stack.
They are of four kinds: —
1. The
harpoon-fork.
2. The
jointed-fork.
3. The
tongs-fork.
4. The
corkscrew-fork.
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Operating horse hay-forks. |
Fig. 2074 gives a general idea of the mode of operating the fork.
A rope passes from the single-tree of the horse over three pulleys to the fork, which is thrust into the load.
When the horse starts up, the load is lifted, and when it has reached the desired hight a trigger is pulled and the load dropped.
The horse is backed, allowing the fork to descend, assisted by the weight which takes up the slack of the fall.
1. The
harpoon-fork is thrust endwise into the hay, the tines being sheathed; then, by the motion of a lever, the tine or tines are exposed so as to catch the hay and elevate it when the fork is lifted.
On reaching the place where the forkful is to be deposited, the catch which holds the tines in their ex-
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tended position is dropped by drawing on a trigger; the tines becoming sheathed by the pressure upon them of the hay, the latter slips off. Two forms of this are shown, but twenty-eight are before the writer while making this notice.
Fig. 2075 has a tube from which protrude two prongs
F F, which are thrust out into the hay after the stem has been driven in to the required depth.
When lifted, the load rests on the prongs, and when a trigger on the stem is pulled by the cord
g, the prongs retreat; the tube falls until it catches on the cross-piece of the stem
D. In
Fig. 2076 the parts
E and
F form the entering portion and maintain a general longitudinal direction while the fork is thrust into the hay, and are vibrated outwardly to hold the hay by the pivoted rod, which is actuated by a lever and auxiliary rope, to drop the load when it has arrived over the desired spot.
2. The
single-jointed fork is one in which the tines are hinged to the stock, so as to assume a position in which the hay will be sustained, but capable of being dropped from this position so as to allow the hay to slip off. The
modus operandi is this:
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Harpoon-forks. |
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Harpoon-forks. |
The times of the fork in its effective position are thrust into the hay, and the fork with its load is then elevated.
On reaching the place where the load is to be deposited, a trigger is pulled, releasing the tines; the weight of the hay causes them to drop, and the load slips off.
Of fifteen kinds at hand, two may be selected as representative.
In
Fig. 2077, the tines are on a head attached to the stock
C and hinged to the bail
D. F is a hinged brace, which thrusts against a stud in a slot of the stock
C, to hold the tines in their holding position.
The tines are tripped by the rope and trigger
i, which pushes the brace
F off the detent and allows the head and stock to rotate on the bail.
Fig. 2078 has its tines
a hinged at midlength, and tripped by lifting the trigger
e on the end of the rope
f.
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Jointed forks. |
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Jointed forks. |
3. The
tongs, or
grabbing-fork, has two hands, so to speak, which clasp upon the bunch of hay, and are locked in their closed position while the hay is being lifted.
When arrived at the place to drop the hay, a rope attached to a trigger is pulled, the two heads of the fork are unlocked, and the weight of the hay presses them open, the hay falling out. The two forms shown are held closed by a straight toggle, and opened when the toggle is bent by a pull on the rope.
In
Fig. 2079 the fork is swung from one prong, and in
Fig. 2080 from both prongs.
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Tongs-forks. |
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Tongs-forks. |
4. The
corkscrew-fork is screwed down into the hay, turning in its handle or stock; a latch holds it in position while the hay is lifted.
A trigger then releases the catch, and the tine being freed is rotated by the weight of the hay which slips therefrom.
As the vertical tines descend into the bunch of hay, the spiral tines are rotated and then locked.
The load being elevated, the cord is pulled, disengaging the detent and revolving the spiral tines to discharge the load.
2. Forks for culinary purposes were common in ancient times,
vide the observances of the Hebrew priests, who dipped their forks into the seethingpot and lifted the meat thence.
The table-fork is a modern invention, deriving its name from the
Italian forca.
The
Greeks and
Romans had also flesh-forks or rakes to lift meat from the pot, but they had no table-forks.
The carver,
carptor, had a knife for carving, and the guests furnished their own. The meat was grasped by the finger and thumb of the
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left hand, and a piece excised.
The New Testament,
Homer, and
Ovid mention the putting of the hands in the dish.
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Corkscrew hay-fork. |
The “dipping in the dish” refers to making a scoop of a piece of bread and dipping out the soup or gravy.
To give a “sop” thus prepared to a friend at table was a delicate attention.
Judas received his and “went out.”
The mark of kindness was too much even for his selfish heart.
The
Chinese use chop-sticks instead of forks.
Bronze forks were used by the
Egyptian priests in presenting offerings to the gods.
Two of them exhumed at Sakkarah are in the Abbott collection.
A fork is mentioned in the accounts of Edward I., and is supposed to have been brought from the
East by a returning crusader.
Voltaire says that they were used by the Lombards in the fourteenth century; and
Martius states that they were common in
Italy in the fifteenth century.
Table-forks are heard of in
Italy from 1458 to 1490.
An Italian at the court of
Matthias Corvinas, king of
Hungary, notices the lack of the fork in the table furniture of the king.
A century after, they were not known in
France or
Sweden.
Coryat, in his “Crudities,” 1611, says: “I observed a custom in all those Italian cities and towns through which I passed, that is not vsed in any other country that I saw in my traules, neither doe I think that any other nation in Christendome doth vse it, but only
Italy.
The
Italians and also most strangers that are commorant in
Italy, doe alwaies at their meales vse a little fork when they cut their meat.”
Fyne Moryson's. “Itinerary,” in the reign of Elizabeth, refers to their use in
Venice.
Heylin in his “Cosmograph,” 1662, says: “The use of silver forks, which is by some of our spruce gallants taken up of late, came from
China into
Italy, and thence into
England.”
Table-forks have long been in use in Feejee.
At a time when all
Northern Europe was destitute of the article, these remarkable savages, the most cruel and ingenious of all the natives of Polynesia, used forks in conveying to their mouths morsels of
puaka-balava, long-pig, as they called cooked man.
Table-forks of the best quality are forged from the end of a rod of
cast-steel, about three eighths square.
The tang, shoulder, and shank are roughly formed and cut off, the prongs being a flat portion which is stamped out by a swage drop.
The film between the tines is cleaned away by the file.
These processes are followed by hardening, tempering, grinding, and hafting.
