Rake (slang)

“ Blessed be horse rakes! Once, half a dozen men with half a dozen rakes would have gone whisking up and down, thrusting out and pulling in the long-handled rakes with slow and laborious progress. But no more of that. See friend Turner, mounted on the wheeled horse rake, riding about as if for pleasure. It is easy times when men ride and horses rake.
[Pg 145] Meanwhile, the clouds come bowling noiselessly through the air, and spit here and there a drop preliminary. Well, if one thing suffers, another gains! See how the leaves are washed; the grass drinks, even drinks ”

“ I don't carry rakes! But why do you want one?"
"To scratch my back," grunted the pig. "You know we porkers always like to have our backs scratched, and I thought, if you had a rake, you could do it for me. ”

“ It is less likely to get broken, and easier to use. There is quite a knack in manipulating even a garden rake, which will come only with practice. Do not rake as though you were gathering up leaves or grass. The secret in using the garden rake is _not_ to gather things up. Small stones, lumps of earth and such things, you of course wish to remove. Keep these raked off ahead of where you are leveling the soil, which is accomplished with a backward-and-forward movement of the rake. ”

“ I have never been able to see any great deal of difference in the two methods, except as to appearance, therefore I would advise the lawn-owner to try both methods and adopt the one that pleases him most. If a rake is used, let it be one with blunt teeth that will not tear the sward. There is such a rake on the market, its teeth being made of bent wire. On no account use a sharp-toothed iron rake. That is sure to injure the sward. ”

“ In holding the handle of the rake high, all the loose stones, weeds, &c., will be easily drawn from the ground without the mould; when the handle is held low, the teeth of the rake enter the ground and scratch it up, which is sometimes necessary to be done; but the little gardener should be careful not to rake away his soil ”

“ Before its introduction the hay, after making, had to be gathered up by the hand rake—a tedious and laborious process—but the introduction of this implement, whereby one horse and one man can do work before requiring six or eight men, marked a great advance. The horse rake is a framework on two wheels carrying hinged steel teeth placed 3 in. apart, so that their points slide along the ground below the hay. In work it gathers up the loose hay, and when full a tipping mechanism permits the emptying of the load. ”

“ James’ turn to laugh. “That is not a shovel, nor is the other a rake, Natalie.”
“Oh, isn’t it? What is it, then?”
“The trowel is used when you wish to dig shallow holes, or loose-earth trenches. The so-called rake is a weeder that you can use about delicate roots, or in forcing deep roots to let go and come up. Both are very necessary for a farmer to use about his house-garden.”
“Well, if I ever have occasion to use them, I shall remember Janet.”
“Then you will be remembering her every day this summer, I think,” laughed Mrs. James. “Weeds are the pest of a farmer’s existence.” ”

“ I spliced the dust-pan's handle at right angles to the handle of the rake, and laid this last across the embrasure. The parapet held its ends securely, and the dust-pan, face downward, projected itself out through the opening. I made all fast with clay and then called Chloe to come up the step-ladder and share with me the triumphant moment when my dam should be broken down and my new dust-pan-cum-rake water-shoot come into play. One's wife should share one's joys as well as one's sorrows, I said. ”

“ It is certainly the pleasantest to hold. A rake is a more dandified affair, a hoe not so well-formed. The scythe and the sickle have a store of poetry and legend about them, but the rake and the hoe contain no romantic virtues. Although the plough is the recognised implement of peace in symbolical language, it joins hands with war in that same language—“turning their swords into ploughshares”—and so loses much of its peaceful meaning, but the spade remains always the sword of the man of peace, one weapon by which he conquers the ground and makes the earth yield her fruits. For me the spade. ”

“ We must learn that the least thing may hinder his work in us. It became necessary for me recently to purchase a hayrake. I was told of two different kinds, one the old-fashioned kind where the prongs of the rake must be lifted by hand, the other an automatic arrangement where by simply touching the foot to a spring the movement of the wheels would lift the rake at the proper time so that raking hay was a delight. ”

“ The grass which grows on the grave lands, if not fed off, is also cut and saved for fuel. We saw several instances of this outside of Shanghai, one where a mother with her daughter, provided with rake, sickle, basket and bag, were gathering the dry stubble and grass of the previous season, from the grave lands where there was less than could be found on our closely mowed meadows. In Fig. 85 may be seen a man who has just returned with such a load, and in his hand is the typical rake of the Far East, made by simply bending bamboo splints, claw-shape, and securing them as seen in the engraving. ”

“ A. The rake should be used on the fire very seldom, because raking the fire bed tends to form clinkers, especially when the rake is plunged down through the fire to the grate. It may be used when necessary to rake the fire lightly when on the road for the purpose of breaking the crust, which may be found as a consequence of too heavy firing. ”

“ The stones should be raked off into the cross-paths, and may remain there until the land is dug up in the autumn or winter, when they may be removed. There is a good deal to be done with the rake in many ways, besides the raking of beds. It is a very useful tool to job over a bed when some kinds of seeds are sown: it also makes a very good drill, and is especially useful in getting leaves from the paths and borders ”

“ Heel-rake, Ell-rake, or Hell-rake, is a large rake, which upon being drawn along the ground the teeth run close to the heels of the person drawing it. This has given it the name of heel-rake, its right name. In Shropshire (and probably in other counties also) this has become contracted into ell-rake.
SALOPIAN.
Freedom from Serpents (Vol. iii., p. 490.) .
—Ireland is not the only country supposed to be inimical to reptiles. ”

“ Each row is termed a “windrow,” the passage of the wind through the hay greatly aiding the drying and “making” thereof. When hay is in this form it may either be carried direct to the stack if sufficiently “made,” or else put into cocks to season a little longer. The original width of horse rakes was about 8 ft., but nowadays they range up to 16 and 18 ft. The width should be suited to that of the swathes as left by the mower, and as the latter is now made to cut 5 and 6 ft. wide, it is necessary to have a rake to cover two widths. The very wide rakes are only suitable for even, level land ”

“ The rake was found, and bound with stout cord to the clothes-prop, and the process of "salving" the wrecked steamer commenced.
"I must mind and not damage her with these iron spikes," said Brian, carefully thrusting out the head of the rake and lowering it into the water.
"Hullo! I've got something," he remarked an instant later, as he hauled in the drag. "But it isn't the boat. What can it be?"
The prongs of the rake grated on the bricks, and there, amid dead leaves, rotten twigs, and muddy sediment, lay something which at first glance might have been mistaken for a dead fish. ”

“ No horse rakes, no mowing machines or hay tedders or loading or pitching devices then. The scythe, the hand rake, the pitchfork in the calloused hands of men and boys did the work, occasionally the women even taking a turn with the rake or in mowing away. I remember the first wire-toothed horse rake with its two handles, which when the day was hot and the grass heavy nearly killed both man and horse. The holder would throw his weight upon it to make it grip and hold the hay, and then, in a spasm of energy, lift it up and make it drop the hay. ”

“ After the digging, and stoning, and turning-over has been done, and the ground is all nice and soft and loamy, the idea of running a rake softly over the susceptible surface and leaving a beautiful even design in its wake, is almost too tempting to be withstood. ”

“ Perhaps the greatest improvement of modern times is the method of carrying the hay from the field to the stack. An American invention known as the sweep rake was introduced by the writer into England in 1894, and now in many modified forms is in very general use in the Midlands and south of England, where the hay is carried from the cock, windrow or swathe straight to the stack. ”

“ The small double round rake (Fig. 2) is set with 1 inch finishing nails.
The large round rake (Fig. 3) is set with 11⁄2 inch No. 10 wire brads, or with wooden pegs whittled from 3⁄8 inch doweling, leaving a small head to prevent the yarn from slipping off too easily. The pegs should be securely glued into holes drilled just the right size to take them. Many patients prefer the wooden pegs in the round rakes. Such a rake was sold in some stores during the war and used for knitting hospital stockings to cover surgical dressings. ”

“ RAKE, the projection of the upper parts of a ship at the height of the stem, and stern, beyond the extremities of the keel. Thus if a plummet be hung from the top of a ship’s stern, so as to be level with the continuation of the keel, the distance between the after end of the keel and the plummet will be the length of the rake abaft, or the rake of the stern.
RAKING a ship, the act of cannonading a ship on the stern, or head, so as that the balls shall scour the whole length of her decks; which is one of the most dangerous incidents that can happen in a naval action. ”

“ The wild course of riot and extravagance, ending in the one with driving the Prodigal from the society of men into the solitude of the deserts, and in the other with conducting the Rake through his several stages of dissipation into the still more complete desolations of the mad-house, in the play and in the picture, are described with almost equal force and nature. The levee of the Rake, which forms the subject of the second plate in the series, is almost a transcript of Timon's levee in the opening scene of that play. We find a dedicating poet, and other similar characters, in both. ”

“ A youth sits with eyes blindfolded and holds a rake upright. The others burn incense and paper and invite the spirit of the rake to come and do the work for them. When the spirit comes the rake is moved and the fuel is gathered by the rake itself apart from human energy. ”

“ Rake considered that he knew more about horses than any other man living, and the other functionary proportionately resented back his knowledge and his interference, as utterly out of place in a body-servant. ”

“ I claim, 1st, A rake shaft or head, arranged outside of the periphery of the wheels, projecting laterally beyond them, and so jointed that its sections can be folded vertically upon the carrying frame without detaching any of the parts of the rake, substantially as described.
2d, An axially turning rake-shaft, so jointed that its outer sections can be folded inwards without detaching any of its parts.
3d, The combination of the inner fixed section of the rake shaft with the outer vertically folding sections, projecting beyond the wheels, substantially as and for the purpose described. ”

“ The whole rake is made of iron, no netting being required, as thin iron wires 1/3 of an inch apart encircle lengthwise the entire basket, preventing the escape of any marketable quahaugs, while at the same time allowing mud and sand to wash out. ”

“ Old Rake breaks fence and flushes our first covey long out of gunshot, my disgust at which is further augmented by one of the keepers, as wild as the dog, breaking line and starting a hare, as remote as the partridges, by his loud imprecations after the miscreant, who is utterly deaf alike to whistle, threats, and entreaties. There is fault enough here; but it doesn't lie entirely with the keeper; it is too evident there is an absence of the eye of the master. ”

“ It is spread evenly with a rake by skilled workmen for the whole width of the street to a thickness about two-fifths greater than the finished coating is intended to be. Ramming is commenced with light blows to ensure equality of compression throughout, .and is continued with increased force until the whole is solidified. ”

“ Now, the arms of the raking apparatus are diametrical arms, the centers of which are axes mounted on a horizontal head, which head is so fastened on a vertical shaft that, the opposite ends of the arms being inclined to the axis of rotation, one end of one arm will descend and sweep across the platform, while the other will be carried in an exactly opposite direction, with its rake teeth turned up, while the teeth of its opposite arm are turned down. ”

“ The tools to be used for this surface Tillage are those which will comminute [223] or fine the soil most completely without compacting it or leaving it in ridges or in furrows. In garden work, a fine rake is the ideal thing; whereas in field work, some of the wire-tooth weeders or smoothing harrows are excellent. In fields which are hard and lumpy, however, it will be necessary to use heavier and rougher tools.
Steel rake
In order to break down hard clay soils, one must exercise great care not to work them when they are wet ”

“ When the great stones have been removed, and none left in the road exceeding six ounces, the road is to be put in shape and a rake employed to smooth the surface, which will at the same time bring to the surface the remaining stone, and will allow the dirt to go down. ”