cultivate

cultivate. . to break up soil or prepare the land with a tool for planting; to grow a plant or crop, header: , Photo Courtesy of Siouxland Heritage Museum in Sioux Falls, South Dakota [SHM 92.8.3], Stone Cutting Tools , The stone cutter was valued for his ability to look at a boulder and determine where best to cut the stone. However, because quartzite is very hard, breaking it into workable pieces required both skill and physical strength. Luckily, the stone cutter had several important tools to make work easier., The use of tools for stone cutting has been traced back to the early Egyptians and Romans. Several stone cutting tools, like those shown below, were used at the quarries of East Sioux Falls. Many of these tools are still used at local quarries today., Chisel , A chisel is a metal tool with a cutting edge at one end that can be forced into the stone with a hammer. The hammer can be hand-held, as in the early 1900s, or pneumatic (air pressure) powered, as today. There are many different chisels that can be used for different purposes., image: , Chisel Image Courtesy of Satrughna via Wikimedia Commons., Prying Iron , A prying iron is used to separate large slabs of stone from bedrock. Similar to a crow bar, the iron is inserted into cracks in the stone, and force is applied to break the slabs free., Hammer , A hammer has a metal head and a wooden handle. The hammer is used with chisels to shape stone, or in some cases, to hit with another hammer to break off chunks of stone. Hammers can have a single or double head and are usually measured by their weight., Rasp and Riffler , Rasps and rifflers prepare the final surface finish of the stone. A rasp is a metal file with raised teeth used to sand down the rough spots on the surface. A riffler is a smaller curved rasp used to enlarge holes., photo: , Splitting Stone with Plug, Feathers and Hammer. Photo Courtesy of Jasper Stone., Plug and Feathers , Plug and feather sets are used to split a large piece of stone into smaller blocks. The stone cutter determines where to cut the stone and then drills holes roughly 6 to 8 inches apart in a line along the cut., Each plug, a tapered metal piece, is sandwiched between two metal feathers and inserted into one of the holes. The plugs are then struck with a hammer in sequence. When the plug and feathers have been hammered tightly enough within the hole, the sound of hammering turns to a ringing., After hammering in the plugs, the stone cutter stops for several minutes to wait for the stone to react to the pressure. Eventually, a crack appears and the stone breaks along the line., Information for this sign is courtesy the Siouxland Heritage Museums in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and www.quarriesandbeyond.org.