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
If ever there shall be Occasion for this Sort of Notches, it must be
when a great Proportion of Seed is to be drill’d by a small Spindle,
and low Wheels: The Smalness of the Spindle may not, by a single Set,
admit of a sufficient Number of Notches (of a proper Bigness) in its
Circumference; not that a double Set, by its double Number, will
throw down a greater Quantity of Seed than a single Set of the same
Width and Depth, but a less Quantity; But it may be feared, that a
very small Number of Notches might not spread the Seed so much as to
cause it to lie even in the Chanels, one Notchful falling all to the
Ground, before any of the next Notchful reaches it, which would make
Chasms or Gaps in the Row of Corn or Legumes: This, such a double
Number of Notches will certainly prevent.
It would seem, that the higher the Wheels, the more need there should
be for this double Set of Notches: But it appears to be otherwise;
for the greater Distance the Seed has to fall, the more it spreads,
and strikes oftener against the Funnel and Trunk; and by that means a
Notch from high Wheels will, with the same Quantity of Seed, supply a
greater Length of the Chanel (or Furrow) than a Notch will from low
Wheels.
In all my Practice I never had any Occasion for such a double Set of
Notches, either with high or low Wheels, or even when I drilled into
open Chanels, without Funnels or Trunks to my Drill-plough; and yet
my Rows of St. Foin, and of Corn, were always free from Gaps, being
equally supply’d with Seed from one End to the other.
If ever there is Occasion for more than a single Set, it must be for
Beans, for which also I think a large Spindle is better than a double
Set of Notches in a small one. The largest Spindle I have known made,
is of Two Inches and an half Diameter, and that only for Horse-Beans.
The best Sort of Notches for a double Set are those which have convex
Bottoms; because such are less liable to drop their Seeds without the
turning of the Wheels, than any other Sort: And a double Set must
be in greater Danger of this, as the Tongue is always hindered from
pressing so closely against any Notch, being held open by the Seeds
on the opposite Interstice; which is contrary to a single Set, where
no Seed can lodge at either End of a Notch, to hold open the Tongue,
or hinder its pressing against it.
_Note_, When I made my Boxes of Wood, I had double Boxes, with a
Partition between such a double Set of Notches; but never made such
in Brass, not knowing whether that Partition, by its Thinness of hard
Metal, might not cut the Spindle: Yet I never found any Occasion for
a double Row of Notches. I made those double Boxes only for drilling
Two Sorts of Seeds at once into the same Chanel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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