1741. The pruning-bill is generally a hooked blade, sometimes sharpened on one, and sometimes on both edges, attached to a handle of from one to four feet in length. There are several varieties: one resembles a pruning-knife on a large scale (fig. 370.), having a handle four feet long, and is used for pruning hedges in the best hedge-districts, such as Northumberland and Berwickshire; another (fig. 371.) has a handle only a foot, or a foot and a half long, being sharpened in part on the back, which forms a sort of halberd-like blade, and is used where hedges are plashed, as in Middlesex and Hertfordshire; and the last we shall mention contains a saw on one edge of the blade, and a knife on the other (fig. 372.). Of this and of the first-mentioned sorts there are small portable varieties with cases, &c. for amateur foresters.
