The long spade-like objects are never notched, but they are frequently narrow at the top, or flaring at the base. Note the lower specimen to the right in Fig. 167. The hoes are really small spades. Hoes may be oval or angular. A third class, shown at the top in Fig. 167, is a highly specialized form. Fig. 168 presents several specimens of oval type, chiefly from Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois, from F. P. Graves’s collection, Doe Run, Missouri. Further study of these will give readers a general idea of the range through which these implements pass. These are all of the more simple forms, save some of the larger ones just above the elongated pestle. The two to the left, in the upper row, are angular and not oval spades. In Fig. 169 are shown five interesting notched hoes from B. H. Young’s collection. These are not as highly finished as those in Fig. 166, but they exhibit a pointed hoe and hoes with a curved edge and the hoe with the digging-edge almost straight. It may be decided, after thorough investigation, that the finer spades were used for a particular purpose or in the cultivation of sacred ground. Mr. Sellars thought that the spades evince more care and skill in their manufacture than the other implements. Formerly, there was some question as to just what purpose these served, but we know now that their distribution was confined to the rich soils of the central Mississippi basin. They do not occur at all frequently in the far South, neither are they found in the Great Plains proper, save perhaps occasionally in eastern Kansas and central Iowa. The polished edges of many of them plainly indicate that they were made use of by the more sedentary tribes to prepare the ground for the planting of corn, beans, squashes, and such other seeds as the Indians possessed. Judging from the prodigious number of these implements in the hands of museums and private collectors, agriculture was carried on by the natives in no small measure. The chipping on most of them is rather rough. It was not necessary for the ancient worker in flint to exert his skill on an implement designed for a rough, although a very useful purpose, yet there are specimens not lacking in the museums to prove that the implement was blocked out after the ordinary fashion, and by means of secondary chipping, small flakes were detached and the surface made as smooth and even as that of a large spear-head. [Illustration: FIG. 167. (S. 1–3.) Flint spades and a hoe—all three unusually fine objects. J. T. Reeder’s collection, Houghton, Michigan. ]