Organic Farm Author: Farmer is flying

Chapter 190: Rush to the market to buy old goods

Tagawa put the large box of old things in the car parked outside the market, and instead of returning to the market, he went straight home. When he got home, he plunged into his study and fiddled with these things. This work should have been done in the workshop, but the workshop located at the southernmost end of the wing has not been cleaned up, let alone any equipment, it has been so empty, and this work can only be done in the study.

What attracted Tagawa the most about these things was the pile of various knives, including fish knives, knives, a complete set of hoof knives for mules and horses, pig knives, and machetes for weaving carpets, and so on, and there were more than ten kinds of knives in total, most of which were very rare. These knives are well maintained, and the original quality should be quite good, as can be seen from the beautiful accessories that come with the knives.

A fish knife is not a knife used to cut fish, but a knife that resembles a fish. This is a folding knife with an iron handle shaped like a fish, hence the name. The blade is straight, but the back of the knife is rounded. The hinge rivet is lined with a small round copper sheet, which happens to be the eye of the fish. At the tail there is a pointed and long "tail", which is used to tie the rope in a knot. This knife is a pure tool knife, which is mostly worn by the handlebar type of a long-distance car. The tip of this knife is blunt, it has no stabbing function at all, and it cannot be used for chopping, but can only be cut, and it is a very safe knife. Ancient handlebar knives were not suspicious of robbers or government scrutiny.

The head of the knife had a pendant made of thin strips of leather tied to the ring, which was supposed to be made of the material used for whipping, and the braided knot, which was the end of the bridle for livestock in the early handlebar style, was a very complex knot that few people would be able to tie unless they were professionals. It can also be seen from this that this knife should have been used professionally by handlebars. The number of such knives made after the liberation was very small, and it is estimated that there have been some years.

The knife is a kind of agricultural knife, which is widely used in the old countryside. This knife is rectangular in shape, measuring about 6 cm x 8 cm, and one long side is the blade. Find a knife without a handle, make two holes on the long side opposite the blade, and wrap a layer of skin or cloth on the back of the knife to prevent grinding when using it. Between the two small holes, a rope sleeve is tethered to one side of the knife. When used, the thumb is passed through this rope sleeve, with the blade facing inward, and it is possible to cut it while holding the ears of the crop. Another way to use the middle finger of the food is to pass the noose through the rope sleeve, also with the blade facing inward, to cut off the crop while grabbing/grabbing it. Most of these knives are used to pluck ears of grain or sorghum from straw. In addition, when holding the back of the knife, it can also be held in the hand as an ordinary knife, which is an essential agricultural tool for ordinary farmers in the old days.

There are three hoof knives in a set, packed in a holster. The three knives consisted of a straight knife for cutting vigorously, the knife with a wooden handle was more than a foot long, somewhat like a carpentry chisel, but much wider than the chisel, reaching two or three centimeters, and the end was a transverse blade. The other is a thin, curved knife with a curved edge, somewhat like a hook, used to pick out the hollow in the middle of the hoof and precisely cut the edge of the hoof. Finally, there was a long needle that somewhat resembled an awl, and Tagawa did not know what it was for.

The pig knife is a peculiar knife shape that has been passed down for many years. In the middle of the knife is a thin rod, about four millimeters in diameter and more than a dozen centimeters in length. At one end is a peach-shaped blade with symmetrical sides, about three centimeters in length and width, and the tip of the knife at the top and the blades on both sides are very sharp. There is a clear edge in the middle of the blade, and the blades on both sides are flattened to facilitate the usual sharpening. The other end of the handle is bent into a hook, but the tip is not sharp, and it should have its own characteristic function.

The knife is placed inside a similarly shaped wallet. The wallet can be opened from the side, and there is no structure such as a lock, but it is fastened with a leather rope that is fixed to the edge of the wallet. The surface of the wallet is engraved with some patterns, and Tagawa carefully distinguishes it and finds that it is the image of a big fat pig. There is also a small compartment inside the wallet, where you can put some small things, but the contents are gone.

This form of pig knife is very popular, and many ancestral pig makers in the north and south of the river use such an ancestral knife to work. It is said that pig ploughers, but in fact, their work range is as large as mules and horses, and as small as roosters, all within their scope of service.

The carpet machete looks a bit like a kitchen knife, but it is much smaller. The blade is about 10 cm long and 8 cm wide, and the edge is rounded. The handle is about 1.5 centimeters wide and seven or eight centimeters long, and it is not mounted with a wooden handle like a kitchen knife. This is used to cut the thread after each threading of hand-woven carpets.

When making a hand-woven carpet, the dense warp thread is fixed on the wooden frame first, and the operator passes the wool through several warp threads and then wears it back, and then cuts the thread with a knife, and then wears the next one. When actually working, the hands are flying, and the machete in the hand is flying into a piece of light and shadow, which is dazzling. This kind of carpet requires a lot of labor to process, generally, it takes a skilled worker nearly a month to cut a two-meter square carpet, and if the color is complex, it will take longer.

As for the other types of knives, they are all relatively common, and most of them have no characteristics, but there is a short knife among them, which is similar in shape to the portable short knife that Tagawa made himself, but it is one size larger than his knife, which should be the traditional self-defense short knife, known as the "boot tucker".

The knife is nearly 30 centimeters long, with a handle 12 centimeters long and a small copper gauntlet between the handles. The scabbard is made of leather, and the color has turned black, and it seems to be quite old. The swallow of the scabbard is inlaid with a small metal mouth with some patterns on it, and the metal is blackened in color, making it appear to be made of silver. The blade is slightly curved, and the color is somewhat black because it has not been used for a long time, but there are no obvious signs of rust. The blade was sharpened miserably because of the poor polishing technique, and it was not sharp, and there were two small notches on the blade, judging from these two notches, the hardness of the blade should not be too low. The handle material should be made from the horns of some animal, which is a little rough, but it feels good to hold in the hand.

Tagawa likes the shape of this knife and is ready to leave it behind, and if he sharpens it carefully, it may be much more beautiful.

In addition to knives, there were also some old farm tools that he was interested in, including two or three metal farm tools such as dung forks and sickles, but there was a spindle rod for spinning wheels and a shuttle for an old loom, which was exactly what the museum needed. There is a newly made spinning wheel in the museum now, and the spindle rod on it is also newly made, far lacking the vicissitudes of this old object that has been used for many years, and the same is true of the shuttle.

There is also a weighing stone and a weighing hook for large scales, which he also likes. These two things may be a set, but they are missing the scale rod and the metal parts on the rod, which makes them incomplete. The scale and the scale hook are both cast iron, the scale hook is just an ordinary hook, nothing special, but the scale is different, cast into the shape of a beast that I don't know what to call, the eyes on both sides are round, it is a fierce image, and it is a fine product at a glance.

Tian Chuan knows that this kind of large scale is a commonly used tool in the old countryside, which can weigh a variety of heavy objects, and its limit weighing weight is about 200 catties, and some will be larger. General pigs and sheep can be weighed with this. In the era when there were no scales, there would be a few pieces of this kind of thing in each village, which were called "big scales", and whoever wanted to use them would go to the people who had big scales to borrow them. Its use is the same as that of ordinary rod scales, but when weighing objects, one person cannot lift it, and often needs to be lifted by two people with a wooden stick.

There are more than a dozen books in the box, Tian Chuan looked at it, there are no fine products, they are all some post-liberation editions, including the old imperial calendar, novels, quotations or something, and a set of Mao Xuan, which turned out to be published in the 33rd year of the Republic of China, a set of five copies. This is a relatively precious version, and there are not too many surviving copies now, and it has a lot of treasure value.

As for the other things in the box, there was nothing particularly valuable, but with so many things seen so far, Tagawa was already very satisfied. He put away the short knife and Mao Xuan he wanted to keep, and put the other things back in the box and sent them to the museum. At this time, the museum was closed for the holidays, and Tian Chuan called the fifth grandfather, who usually watched the night here, and asked him to open the door, put the box of old things into the room for review, and registered before leaving.

On the way home, Tagawa met Tian Wenming, who was in the timber business in the village. It is said to be a timber business, but in fact, it is to drive a farm vehicle to nearby villages to collect wood and sell it to a lumber mill. When he collects wood, he asks for all kinds of wood, including live trees, and can help cut them down, and finally take them away at a price, and he doesn't make much money. Seeing Tian Wenming, Tian Chuan suddenly thought of finding wood to make wooden sticks, so he called out to the other party: "Fifth brother, are you still collecting wood recently?"

"I'm still harvesting, but I'm resting after the fifteenth day of the lunar month, and it's almost the New Year, so I want to rest more. ”

"When you collect wood in the future, can you help me find some wood? I'll pay the price." ”

"You can say whatever wood you want, and what you don't have money for. ”

"You help me keep an eye on it, I want to find a section of mulberry trunk and a section of wax trunk, both smooth and straight, so thick," he said, gesturing with both hands, about ten centimeters in diameter, "the length should be more than two meters." In addition, you have to find a section of jujube wood, which should be so thick, or thicker, not too smooth, as long as it is about straight, more than a meter long. ”

"Coincidentally, I have a section of jujube wood in my house, which is estimated to be similar to what you said, and there are two sections of mulberry wood, why don't you go and see it now?"

"Good. Tian Chuan said, and followed Tian Wenming home to see the wood.