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
[58] But this must be intended of the deep Horse-hoeing; for Turneps
that stand for Seed, are such Devourers, and feed so long on the
Soil, that tho’ they are Hand-ho’d, such a shallow Operation doth not
supply the usual Thickness of those Plants with Pasture sufficient
to raise their Stems to half their natural Bulk; and they leave so
little of that Pasture behind them, that the Soil is observ’d to be
extremely impoverished for a Year or two, and sometimes three Years
after them; but ’tis otherwise with my Horse-ho’d Turnep-Seed; for
I never fail’d of a good Crop of Barley after it, sown on the Level
in the following Spring, tho’ no Dung hath been used on the Land
where the Turnep-Seed grew for many Years. And also my Barley Crops
thus sown after two successive Crops of Turnep-Seed without a Fallow
between them, are as good as those sown after a single Crop of it.
For I have several Times made these Turnep-Seed Crops annual, that
is, to have Two Crops of it in Two Years, which would in the old Way
require three Years, because this Crop stands about a Year on the
Ground, and is not ripe till Midsummer, which is too late to get
that Land into a Tilth proper to plant another Seed Crop on it the
same Summer; neither can the Soil be able to bear such another Crop
immediately after being so much exhausted, and unplowed for a whole
Year, except it be extraordinary rich, or much dunged: However, Two
Crops of Turnep-Seed immediately succeeding one another, is what I
never knew, or heard of, except my own that were Horse-ho’d; and of
these the second Crop was as good as the first; their Stalks grew
much higher than they usually do in the common Way; and tho’ the
Number of Plants was much less, their Produce was so valuable, that
the _Vicar’s Agent_ declared, he made Twenty Shillings _per_ Acre of
his Tythe of a whole Field which he tythed in Kind. The Expence of
these Crops was judg’d to be answered by the Fuel of the thresh’d
Stalks. It must be noted, that the extraordinary Value of these Crops
arose, not from a greater Quantity of Seed than some common Crops;
but from their Quality, Experience having brought this Seed into
great Esteem, on account of its being perfectly clean, and produced
by large Turneps of a good Sort, and of a proper Shape; for those
that are not well cultivated are very apt to degenerate, and then
their Seed will produce Turneps of a small Size, and of a long rapy
ill Shape.
[59] Turneps run to Seed, not till the second Summer.
The wider the Intervals are, the more Earth may be divided; for the Row
takes up the same Room with a wide, or a narrow Interval; and therefore
with the wide, the unho’d Part bears a less Proportion to the ho’d Part
than in the narrow.
And ’tis no Purpose to hoe, where there is not Earth to be ho’d, or
Room to hoe it in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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