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
Mr. _Bradley’s_ Lines, drawn from the Trees below, which are one
Perch asunder, make the Two Rows of Trees falsly seem to be at equal
Distances, because these Lines are parallel to each other: But this is
a Deceit; for, in Truth, the Distances of the Trees are not measured
by the Distances of those Lines, but by the extreme Points at the Ends
of the Lines[222]; and those Two Points above, where the Lines cut
the Row obliquely, and at unequal Angles are twice as far asunder as
the endmost or extreme Points below are, where the Lines cut the Row
at right Angles. Hence may be inferr’d, that there is Room for twice
as many Trees to grow on the Hill as on the Base, and twice as much
Grain for the same Reason; because there is twice the Surface for the
Roots to spread in. And since Mr. _Bradley_ allows the Hill to contain
Two Perches to One of the Base, and the Soil of both to be of equal
Goodness; and yet affirms, that the Two can produce no more of Grain
or Trees than the one Perch can; I cannot see, why it should not be as
reasonable to say, that Two Quarters of Oats will maintain an Horse no
longer, nor better, than One Quarter of Oats, of equal Goodness, will
do.
[222] These upper Trees are measured by the unequal Length of the
Lines, not by their parallel Distance, as the lower Trees are;
therefore his Measure is a Quibble.
In _Page_ 13. he concludes thus: ‘That Hills, in their Measure, contain
only as much profitable Land as the Plain or Plat of Ground they stand
upon; and as a Proof of that, all Vegetables or Plants have an erect
Method of Growth.’
This Proof of Mr. _Bradley_’s is founded upon an Argument which has no
Consequence, unless it were first proved, that the Surface of Earth
could produce and maintain as many Vegetables or Plants as could stand
thereon in an erect Posture; which Supposition is as impossible, as
that half an Acre should produce and maintain an Hecatomb, without Mr.
_Bradley_’s teaching Oxen to live upon Air for their Food, as he thinks
_Van Helmont_’s Tree did.
All expert Husbandmen must needs be convinced, that the greatest Crop
of Vegetables that ever grew, might stand in an erect Posture, upon
a twentieth (and I may say the Hundredth) Part of the Surface that
produced it; therefore there must be Nineteen Parts for the Roots to
spread, unoccupied by the Trunks, Stems, or Stalks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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