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
All Sorts of Land, when made fine by Tillage, or by Manure and Tillage,
will serve to produce Turneps, but not equally; for chalky Land is
generally too dry (a Turnep being a thirsty Plant); and they are so
long in such dry poor Land before they get into rough Leaf, that the
Fly is very apt to destroy them there; yet I have known them succeed on
such Land, tho’ rarely.
Sand and Gravel are the most proper Soil for Turneps, because that is
most easily pulveriz’d, and its Warmth causeth the Turneps to grow
faster, and so they get the sooner out of the Danger of the Fly; and
such a Soil, when well-till’d, and Horse-ho’d, never wants a sufficient
Moisture, even in the driest Weather; and the Turneps being drill’d
will come up without Rain, and prosper very well with the sole
Moisture of the Dews, which are admitted as deep as the Pulveration
reacheth; and if that be to Five or six Inches, the hottest Sun cannot
exhale the Dews thence in the Climate of _England_: I have known
Turneps thrive well in a very dry Summer by repeated Horse-hoeings,
both in Sand and in Land which is neither sandy nor gravelly.
When I sow’d Turneps by Hand, and ho’d them with a Hand-hoe, the
Expence was great, and the Operation not half perform’d, by the
Deceitfulness of the Hoers, who left half the Land unho’d, and cover’d
it with the Earth from the Part they did hoe, and then the Grass and
Weeds grew the faster: Besides, in this Manner a great Quantity of Land
could not be managed in the proper Season.
When I drill’d upon the Level[69], at Three Feet Intervals, a Trial was
made between those Turneps and a Field of the next Neighbour’s, sown at
the same Time, whereof the Hand-hoeing cost Ten Shillings _per_ Acre,
and had not quite half the Crop of the drill’d, both being measur’d by
the Bushel, on Purpose to find the Difference[70].
[69] ’Tis impossible to hoe-plow them so well when planted upon the
Level, as when they are planted upon Ridges; for if we plow deep near
the Row, the Earth will come over on the Left-Side of the Plough, and
bury the younger Turneps; but when they stand on Ridges, the Earth
will almost all fall down on the Right Side into the Furrow in the
Middle of the Interval.
[70] And I have since found, that Turneps on the same Land, planted
on Ridges, with Six-feet Intervals, make a Crop double to those that
are planted on the Level, or even on Ridges with Three-feet Intervals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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