in husbandry, a term used to express an instrument used to hoe or break the ground near and among the roots of plants.

The ordinary contrivance of the hoe is very defective, it being only made for scraping on the surface; but the great use of hoeing being to break and open the ground, beside the killing of the weeds, which the ancients, and many among us, have thought the only use of the hoe, this dull and blunt instrument is by no means calculated for the purpose it is to serve. The prong-hoe consists of two hooked points of six or seven inches long, and when struck into the ground will stir and remove it the same depth as the plough does, and thus answer both the ends of cutting up the weeds and opening the land. It is useful even in the horse-hoeing husbandry, because the hoe-plough can only come within three or four inches of the rows of the corn, turnips, and the like; whereas this instrument may be used afterwards, and with it the land may be raised and stirred even to the very stalks of the plant. See Agriculture and Hoe.