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
As the Ridges may be much lower that have only the one Partition, so
the Intervals may be narrower, and yet have as much Earth in them to
be pulveriz’d, as in wide ones that are betwixt treble Rows; because
the Four Inches that are in the two Partitions more than in the single
Partition, being on the Top of the Ridge, may have more Mould under
them than Eight Inches on the Side of a Ridge; and the Four Inches,
being in the Partitions, lose the Benefit of Horse-hoeing.
Instead of using the middle Row as an Alloy, ’tis better to plant such
Sorts of Wheat as do not require any Alloy to the double Row; and these
are the _White-cone_, and above all other Sorts the right _Smyrna_.
The _White-cone_ Wheat must not be reaped so green as the _Lammas_
Wheat may; for if it is not full-ripe, it will be difficult to thresh
it clean out of the Straw.
It happened once that my _White-cone_ being planted early, and being
very high, the Blade and Stalk were kill’d in the Winter; and yet it
grew high again in the Spring, and had then the same Fortune a Second
time; it lay on the Ridges like Straw, but sprung out anew from the
Root, and made a very good Crop at Harvest: Therefore, if the like
Accident should happen, the Owner needs not be frighted at it.
One thing that made Six-feet Ridges seem at first necessary, was the
great Breadth of the Two Partitions (which were Eight Inches apiece),
which, together with the Earth left on each Side of the treble Row
not well cleansed by Hand-work, made Two large whole Furrows, at the
first Plowing for the next Crop, that could not be broken by Harrows:
These Two strong Furrows, being turned to the Two Furrows that are in
the middle of a narrow Interval, for making a new Ridge, would cover
almost all the pulveriz’d Earth, not leaving room betwixt the Two
whole Furrows for the Drill to go in. But now the single Partition,
and the Earth left by the Hoe-Plough, on the Outsides of the double
Row, making Two narrow Furrows, and the one Partition being cleansed,
and deeper Hand-ho’d than those of the treble Row were, or could be,
are easily broken by the Harrows; for, besides their Narrowness, they
have no Roots to hold their Mould together, except the Wheat-roots,
which, being small and dead, have not Strength enough to hold it; and
therefore that Necessity of such broad Ridges now ceases along with the
treble Row.
When the Two narrow fragile Furrows are harrowed, and mixed with the
pulveriz’d Earth of the Intervals, the Roots of the Wheat will reach
it; and it is no Matter whether the Crop be drill’d after Two Plowings,
in which Case the Row will stand on the very same Place whereon the Row
stood the precedent Year, or whether it be drill’d after One or Three
Plowings; and then the Rows will stand on the Middle of the last Year’s
Intervals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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