Ok you are all on the right track.  It is an agricultural tool.  But for what?

Answer: ok, you were all around it, and I think Wally was the closest.  It was used to dig up sugar beets. Not entirely sure how it worked, and I couldn't find an actual photo of this particular tool in use, but look at the photo below by L. C. Harmon from the National Archives (“Children and Sugar Beets” Hall County, Nebraska, October 17, 1940).  Based on the size and the shape of the sugar beets, you can tell how the tool would have been used.  The two prong ends would have been inserted into the earth and gotten down near the narrow part of the beet before being lifted up.  

UNFAIR!!!!Wally is a peasant--of course he would know--all the rest of us are descended from nobles.  How could webe expected to recognize a device designed for physical labour?  Ugh!WillyD

;DThe only thing I'm not sure about on the tool is that piece of metal that is bent at a 90 degree angle.  I guess it would be used to put one's foot on to insert it into the ground.  However, that would seem to mean that the tool would have been put into the ground at the wrong angle (sideways).  So I would like to see the tool in action somehow.