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
Another Experiment I propose to be made as a Trial for the
Satisfaction of such sceptical Gentlemen who may doubt the Truth of
what I have related in p. 27, 28. concerning the wonderful Effect of
deep Hoeing. In a Field of very poor old decayed St. Foin, let Two
or Three Perches be hedged in, in a square Piece, and Two, Three, or
more Intervals, of Three or Four Feet wide each, be well pulverized
by the Spade, leaving between every Two of them, Two or Three Feet
of the St. Foin unmoved. Begin this Work in Summer, and repeat the
Hoeing pretty often, observing the Rules I have laid down for Hoeing
the Intervals of Wheat. Let not the Back of the Spade be turned
towards the unmoved St. Foin, from which it throws the Earth at the
First time of Hoeing; which is contrary to the First Hoeing of Wheat
with a Spade; because there would otherwise be Danger of moving
Wheat-roots; but there is no Danger of moving the St. Foin Roots,
unless you wholly dig them out: Therefore the best Way for this
Hoeing is to dig with the Back of the Spade towards one or the other
End of the Interval: This cuts off the fewest Roots, and covers the
most of them, and may perhaps be sometimes best for Wheat also. When
the Earth is turned towards the St. Foin Rows, the Spade’s Face will
be towards them of course.
Be sure to leave Four or more Feet untouched next to the Hedge that
bounds the Piece, to the End that the Increase of the hoed St. Foin
may the more plainly appear by comparing its Plants with those that
are not hoed.
If the Plants are very thick, make them thinner on one side of an
Interval; and, on the other side, let them remain thick. You will
certainly find the thin Plants most wonderfully increased in a Year
or two, and the thick ones in proportion; and also the natural Grass,
and all other Vegetables that grow near to the Intervals when they
are well pulverized. I am confident mine, thus managed by Ploughs,
increased some to an Hundred, some to a Thousand times the Size they
were of before that Pulveration.
All the Methods I have here and elsewhere described for the Field, I
advise to be tried in these few Perches for Experiments.
I think some of those Ridges whereon one End is to be managed
differently from the other End, should be longer than Six Feet; else
the Roots of the Wheat and Weeds may so mix, and draw Nourishment
from one another in the Middle of the Ridge, that the Difference
of the Managements may not so plainly be seen as when the Ridge is
longer.
The few Perches of Land whereon any of the proposed Experiments are
to be made, should be bounded in with dead Hedges; and should not be
situate within Three or Four Poles of a live Hedge or Tree.
The Three Instruments to be used in these unexpensive Trials, are,
the Spade, to supply the Use of the Plough and Hoe plough; the
Hand-hoe; and a Rake, instead of Harrows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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