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
I cannot commend more than Two Partitions in a Row, or more than One,
when the Intervals are narrow; because the broader the Row is, the
more Earth will remain unpulverized, under the Partitions; too much
of which Earth being whole, will disappoint, at least, one of the
Differences mentioned in my xviith Chapter.
Indifferent Land I think most proper whereon to make the Experiment,
and the most improper for Corn is barren Land, as the best brings the
largest Crops.
To ascertain the Quantity of the Crop, take a Yard in the Middle of a
Ridge, and weigh its Produce.
Every Year leave one Interval unhoed, to prove the Difference of that
Side of a double or treble Row next to it, from the other Side next
to the hoed Interval.
But it must be _noted_, that the Spade doth not always pulverize so
much as the Plough, or Hoe-plough; therefore there may be occasion
for more Diggings than there would be of Horse-hoeings.
One of the Observations that put me upon Trials of wide Intervals,
and Horse work for Corn, was the following; _viz._ One Half of a
poorish Field was sown with Barley; the other Half drilled with
Turneps, the Rows Thirty Inches asunder, at the proper Season, and
twice hoed with a Sort of Horse-hoe contrived for that Purpose (but
nothing like that I have described); the Drill, beginning next to
the Barley, left an Interval of the same (30 Inches) Breadth between
the First Row of Turneps and the Barley, which, being sown on large
Furrows, came up in a sort of Rows, as is common for Barley to come
when sown on such wide Furrows. This Interval between the Barley and
the Turneps had the same Hoeings as the rest, and had this Effect
on the broad Row of Barley next to it; _viz._ Each Plant had many
Stalks; it was of a very deep flourishing Colour, grew high, the Ears
very long, and, in all respects, the Barley was as good as if it had
been produced by the richest Land. The next Row of Barley had some
little Benefit on the Side next to the strong Row; but all the rest
of the Barley, either by the too late Sowing of it, the Poverty of
the Soil (not being in any manner dunged), or else by the Coldness
of the Land, or Coldness of the Summer, or by all of these Causes,
though pretty free from Weeds, was exceeding poor, yellow, low, thin,
and the Ears were very short and small.
I intended to have taken the exact Difference there was between the
Produce of this outside Row, and one of those that stood out of the
Reach of the hoed Interval: But I was disappointed by my Neighbour’s
Herd of Cows, that in the Night broke in just before Harvest, and eat
off almost all the Ears of the rich Row, doing very little Damage
to the rest, except by treading it. It must be from the different
Tastes, the one being sweet, and the other bitter, that they make
their Election to eat the one, and refuse the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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