Horse-hoeing husbandry : $b or, an essay on the principles of vegetation and tillage. Designed to introduce a new method of culture; whereby the produce of land will be increased, and the usual expence lessened. Together with accurate descriptions and cuts of the instruments employed in it.Tull, Jethro
Science
Horse-hoeing husbandry : $b or, an essay on the principles of vegetation and tillage. Designed to introduce a new method of culture; whereby the produce of land will be increased, and the usual expence lessened. Together with accurate descriptions and cuts of the instruments employed in it.
Tull, Jethro
Agriculture -- Early works to 1800; Plows; Tillage
It must be _noted_, that the above Experiments would not have been
a full Proof, if Weeds had been suffered to grow in the Partitions
of the Ends of those Ridges, in the Year wherein the Difference
appeared. It may also be _noted_, that a Mixture and Variety of bad
Husbandry are useful for a Discovery of the _Theory_ and _Practice_
of good Husbandry.
And I have plainly proved, that the Roots of Cone-wheat have reached
Mould at Two Feet Distance, after passing through another Row at a Foot
Distance from it, the Plants being then but Eighteen Inches high, and
but half-grown.
Farmers do not grudge to bestow Three or Four Pounds in the Buying
and Carriage of Dung for an Acre; but think themselves undone, if
they afford an extraordinary Eighteen-penyworth of Earth to the wide
Intervals of an Acre; not considering that Earth is not only the best,
but also the cheapest Entertainment that can be given to Plants; for
at Five Shillings and Six-pence Rent, the whole Earth belonging to each
of our Rows costs only Six-pence, _i. e._ a Peny for a Foot broad, and
Six hundred and Sixty Feet long; that being the Sixty-sixth Part of an
Acre[138].
[138] But the Vulgar compute this Expence of a Foot Breadth of
Ground, not only as of the Rent, as they ought, but as an Eleventh
Part of their own usual Charges added to the Rent.
And there is Land enough in _England_ to be had, at the Rent of Five
Shillings and Six-pence the Acre, that is very proper for Wheat in
the Hoeing-Husbandry.
And if for constant annual Wheat-crops you make fewer than Eleven
Rows on Four Perches Breadth, you will always increase the Expence of
Hoeing; because then Two Furrows will not Hoe One of those Intervals,
and you will also thereby lessen the Crops, but improve the Land more:
And if you increase that Number of Rows, you will thereby increase
every Expence; for there must be Two Furrows to hoe a narrow Interval,
and an Increase of the Quantity of Seed, and the Labour in uncovering,
weeding, and reaping; and also you will less improve the Land, and
lessen the Crops after the First Year.
If the Intervals are narrower in deep Land, tho’ there might be Mould
enough in them, yet there would not be Room to pulverize it.
If narrower in shallow Land, tho’ there were Room, yet there would not
be Mould enough in them to be pulverized.
The Horse-hoe, well applied, doth supply the Use of Dung and Fallow;
but it cannot supply the Use of Earth, tho’ it can infinitely increase
the vegetable Pasture of it, by pulverizing it, where it is in a
reasonable Quantity: Yet if the Intervals be so narrow, that near all
the Earth of them goes to make the Partitions raised at the Top of the
Ridges, there will be so little to be pulverized, that you must return
to Fallowing, and to the Dung-cart, and to all the old exorbitant
Charges[139].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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