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
The First Manner now in Use is, to divide the Ground of Turneps by
Hurdles, giving them leave to come upon no more at a Time than they
can eat in one Day, and so advance the Hurdles farther into the Ground
daily, until all be spent; but we must observe, that they never eat
them clean this Way, but leave the Bottoms and Outsides of the Turneps
they have scoop’d in the Ground. These Bottoms People pull up with Iron
Crooks, made for that Purpose; but their Cavities being tainted with
Urine, Dung, and Dirt from their Feet, tho’ the Sheep do eat some of
the Pieces, they waste more, and many the Crooks leave behind in the
Earth; and even what they do eat of this tainted Food, can’t nourish
them so well as that which is fresh and cleanly.
The second Manner is, to move the Hurdles every Day, as in the First;
but that the Sheep may not tread upon the Turneps, they pull them up
first, and then advance the Hurdles as far daily as the Turneps are
pull’d up, and no farther: By this Means there is not that Waste made
as in the other Way; the Food is eaten fresh and clean; and the Turneps
are pull’d up with less Labour than their Pieces can be[91].
[91] I have seen Three Labourers work every Day with their Crooks,
to pull up these Pieces, which was done with much Difficulty, the
Ground being trodden very hard by the Sheep; when one Person, in Two
Hours time, would have pull’d up all the _whole_ Turneps daily, and
the Sheep would have eaten them clean; but so many of those Pieces
were dry’d and spoil’d, that, after the Land was sown with Barley,
they appear’d very thick upon the Surface, and there could not be
much less than half the Crop of Turneps wasted, notwithstanding the
Contrivance of these Crooks.
The Third Manner is, to pull them up, and to carry them into some other
Ground in a Cart, or Waggon, and there spread them every Day on a new
Place, where the Sheep will eat them up clean, both Leaf and Root:
This is done when there is Land not far off, which has more Need of
Dung, than that where the Turneps grow, which perhaps is also too wet
for Sheep in the Winter; and then the Turneps will, by the too great
Moisture and Dirt of the Soil, spoil the Sheep, and in some Soils
give them the Rot, yet such Ground will bring forth more and larger
Turneps than dry Land; and when they are carry’d off, and eaten on
plow’d Ground in dry Weather, and on Green-swerd in wet Weather, the
Sheep will thrive much better; and that moist Soil, not being trodden
by the Sheep, will be in much the better Order for a Crop of Corn. And
generally the Expence of Hurdles, and removing them, being saved, will
more than countervail the Labour of carrying off the Turneps.
These Three Ways of spending Turneps with Sheep are common to those
drill’d, and to those sown in the random Manner; but they must always
be carry’d off for Cows and Oxen; both which will be well fatted by
them, and some Hay in the Winter: The Management of these is the
Business of a Grazier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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