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
Many, to prevent this, spread it upon a Malt-Floor, turning it often;
or, when the Quantity is small, upon a Barn-floor; but still I find,
that this Way a great deal of it is spoil’d; for it will heat, tho’
it be spread but an handful thick, and they never spread it thinner:
Besides, they may miss some Hours of the right times of turning it;
for it must be done very often; it should be stirr’d in the Night as
well as the Day, until the Heating be over; and yet, do what they can,
it never will keep its Colour so bright as that which is well housed,
well dry’d, and thresh’d in the Winter: For in the Barn the Stalks keep
it hollow; there are few Ears or Seeds that touch one another; and the
Spirits have room to fly off by Degrees, the Air entering to receive
them.
The only Way I have found to imitate and equal this, is to winnow it
from the Sheet; then lay a Layer of Wheat-straw (or if that be wanting,
of very dry-thresh’d Hay); then spread thereon a thin Layer of Seed,
and thus _Stratum super Stratum_, Six or Seven Feet high, and as much
in Breath; then begin another Stack; let there be Straw enough, and do
not tread on the Stacks; by this means the Seed mixing with the Straw,
will be kept cool, and come out in the Spring with as green a Colour as
when it was put in, and not one Seed of a Thousand will fail to grow
when planted. A little Barn-room will contain a great Quantity in this
Manner.
I have had above One hundred Quarters of clean Seed thus manag’d in one
Bay of a small Barn. We do not stay to winnow it clean before we lay it
up in the Straw; but only pass it through a large Sieve, and with the
Van blow out the Chaff, and winnow it clean in the Spring.
This Field-threshing requires extraordinary fine Sun-shiny Weather,
which some Summers do not afford at the Season, for threshing a great
Quantity of it; for ’tis but a small Part of the Day in which the
Seed can be thresh’d clean out. They who have a small Quantity of it,
do carry it into a Barn early in the Morning, or even in the Night;
whilst the Dew is on it; for then the Seed sticks fast to the Ear:
As it dries, they thresh it out; and if they cure it well, have thus
sometimes good Seed, but generally the Hay is spoil’d.
There is one Method of saving all the Seed good, and the Hay too, by
carrying it unthresh’d to the Barn or Rick, in a particular Manner,
tho’ it be a great Quantity, more than can presently be thresh’d; but
must be laid up in Mows or Ricks, as Corn is. Then if it be carry’d in,
in the Dews or Damp, the Hay is sure to be spoil’d, if not both Hay and
Seed: When ’tis taken up dry, the Seed comes out with a Touch, and the
greatest Part is lost in pitching up the Cocks, binding and jolting in
carrying home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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