Also 3 -graf, 6 -graffe, 7– spade’s graft. [f. SPADE sb.1 + GRAFT sb.3]
1. A spade’s depth; a spit.
α. 1252. Cart. de Rameseia (Rolls), I. 299. Unam perticam fossati … habentis profunditatem duorum spadegrafs.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 124. Dygge vp the muldes a spade-graffe depe.
1671. J. Webster, Metallogr., iii. 45. They usually leave one depth of Spade-graft of that Earth.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 115/1. Delfe, or Spadegraft, [is] a digging into the Earth as deep as a spade can go at once.
1765. Museum Rust., III. 11. He takes the earth … two spade-grafts deep.
1837. Howitt, Rur. Life, V. iv. (1862), 390. Every spadegraft of your cultivation annihilates the habitats … of animals, insects, and plants.
1891. Atkinson, Moorland Par., 214. Half a spade-graft of mould.
β. 1620. [see GRAFT sb.3 1].
1652. Blithe, Eng. Improver Impr., 116. The depth may be two Spades graft or more.
1660. Sharrock, Vegetables, 95. Thou must goe half one spades graft deep.
1792. [see GRAFT sb.3 1].
1844. Proc. Soc. Antiq., I. 30. They were discovered in 1827 near Guisborough, at a depth of about a ‘spade’s graft’ beneath the surface.
¶ 2. The handle of a spade. Obs.
Evelyn is copied or followed by the Dict. Rusticum (1704), Mortimer Husb. (1721), II. 27, etc.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, v. 21. The Beech serves for various Uses of the House-wife;… likewise for the Wheeler,… for the Bellows-maker, and Husbandman his Shovel and Spade-graffs.
