Hoe

This is an agricultural equipment designed to remove weed in paddies or fields, or to stir the surface of the soil. Weeding hoes are divided into a weeding hoe for rice paddies and the one for fields. The latter is a multi-purpose tool used for various crops other than rice, and is smaller and lighter than the former. Meanwhile, a weeding hoe for rice paddies has a much larger and heavier blade than the one used for fields. A weeding hoe is composed of the blade, the tang, and the handle. The blade is an iron plate used for digging the soil or for cutting weeds, the handle is made to be held by hand, and the tang connects the blade to the handle. The blade is commonly inverted triangle-shaped, with a pointy lower part and a wide and flat upper part. One end of the blade, or the handle end of the blade, is curved and driven into a round piece of wood used as the handle. Weeding hoes are used nationwide but have different features from province to province. Based on the natural conditions and the agricultural management of each area, weeding hoes are subdivided into a plowshare type, a sickle type and a triangular type. Plowshare-type weeding hoes are appropriate for weeding a rice paddy and widely used in Gyeonggi Province, Chungcheong Province, and North Jeolla Province. Like the plowshare of a sickle, the hoe’s blade of this type is pointy and its upper part is wide and flat. Sickle-type weeding hoes are commonly used in shingly areas such as the island areas and mountainous regions of South Gyeongsang Province, Jeju Island and South Jeolla Province. Resembling a sickle, sickle-type weeding hoes have a longer blade compared to its width and a sharp end. Triangular-type weeding hoes are mainly used in Hwanghae Province, Pyeongan Province, North Gyeonggi Province and North Gangwon Province, and are convenient for cutting grass since the blade and the handle are the longest among Korean weeding hoes.