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
But the new Method of Hoeing gives, to strong and to light Land, all
the Advantages, and takes away all the Disadvantages, of both; as
appears in the Chapters of _Tillage_ and _Hoeing_. By this Method the
strong Land may be planted with Wheat as early as the light (if plow’d
dry); and the Hoe-Plough can, if rightly apply’d, raise a Pasture to
it[92], equal to that of Dung in both Sorts of Land.
[92] Because the Hoe may go in it all the Year, and the Soil being
_infinitely divisible_, the Division which the Hoe may make whilst
the Crop is growing, added to the common Tillage, may equal, or even
exceed, a common Dressing with Dung, as I have often experienced.
About the Year 1701, when I had contrived my Drill for planting St.
Foin, I made use of it also for Wheat. Drilling many Rows at once,
which made the Work much more compendious, and perform’d it much
better than Hands could do, making the Channels of a Foot Distance,
drilling in the Seed, and covering it, did not in all amount to more
than Six-pence _per_ Acre Expence, which was above ten Times over-paid
by the Seed that was saved; for One Bushel to an Acre was the Quantity
drill’d; there remain’d then no need of Hand-work, but for the Hoeing;
and this did cost from Half a Crown to Four Shillings _per_ Acre. This
way turn’d to a very good Account, and in considerable Quantities; it
has brought as good a Crop of Wheat on Barley-stubble, as that sown the
common Way on Summer-fallow; and when that sown the old Way, on the
same Field, on Barley-stubble, intirely fail’d, tho’ there was no other
Difference but the Drilling and Hoeing: It was also such an Improvement
to the Land, that when, one Part of a strong whitish Ground, all of
equal Goodness, and equally fallow’d and till’d, was dung’d and sown in
the common Manner, and the other Part was thus drill’d and hand-ho’d
without Dung, the ho’d Part was not only the best Crop, but the whole
Piece being fallow’d the next Year, and sown all alike by a Tenant,
the ho’d Part produc’d so much a better Crop of Wheat than the dung’d
Part, that a Stranger would have believ’d by looking on it, that that
Part had been dung’d which was not[93], and that Part not to have been
dung’d which really was.
[93] If the Dung did pulverize as much as the Hoeing, the Cause must
be from the different Exhaustion.
Scarce any Land is so unfit, and ill prepar’d, for Wheat, as that where
the natural Grass[94] abounds. Most other sorts of Weeds may be dealt
withal when they come among drill’d Wheat; but ’tis impossible to
extract Grass from the Rows: Therefore let that be kill’d before the
Wheat be planted.
[94] One Bunch of natural Grass, transplanted by the Plough into a
treble Row of Wheat, will destroy almost a whole Yard of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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