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
When you perceive the Ridges are too high, harrow them lower by the
described manner of Harrowing; first with the heavy Harrows for
harrowing out the Stubble, and then with light ones, which may be
often, for making the Earth on the Ridges the finer for Drilling,
without throwing much of it down; frequent Harrowings in this manner,
not being injurious like too much Harrowing on level Ground, which
is sometimes trodden as hard as the Highway by the Cattle that draw
the Harrows; for in harrowing these Ridges, the Beast draws the Two
Harrows, and always treads in the Furrow between them where there is
none or very little Mould to tread on.
The Price of Hand-hoeing of these double Rows is a Peny for thirty
Perches in Length of Row, which amounts to between Eighteen and
Nineteen Pence for an Acre.
I should say, that in Hand-hoeing the Earth must never be turned
towards the Wheat; for, if it were, it might crush it when young;
neither could the Partition be clean hoed.
The Hand-hoes for hoeing the Ten-inch Partition have their Edges Seven
Inches long; they are about Four Inches deep from the Handle; if they
were deeper, they would be too weak; for they must be thin, and well
steeled. The Labourers pay for them, and keep them in Order, for their
own Use.
These Hoes must not cut out any Part of the Two Rows, nor be drawn
through them, as the Four-inch Hoes sometimes may through the treble
Rows.
If I am taxed with Levity in changing my treble Rows for double ones,
it will not appear to be done of a sudden. In _p._ 132. I advised the
Trial of both Sorts: And now, upon fuller Experience, I find the
double Rows much preferable to the treble, especially for Wheat.
When Gentlemen saw the middle Row on low Ridges so much inferior to the
outside Rows, they were convinced of the Effect of deep Hoeing; for
they said, there was no other Reason for this so visible a Difference,
except the outside Rows standing nearer to the pulveriz’d Intervals
than the middle Row did.
And when on high Ridges the middle Row was nearly or quite as good
as one of the outside Rows, I was not convinced, that they were not
diminished by the middle Row, as much as the Produce of it amounted
to: And this I now find to be the Case; for Four Rows of Oats, without
a middle Row, produced somewhat more than the same Number that had a
middle Row; Two of which treble Rows were taken on one Side, and Two on
the other Side of the double Rows, purposely to make an unexceptionable
Trial. And it is, as far as I can judge, the same in Wheat.
’Tis true, I began my Horse-hoeing _Scheme_ first with double Rows;
but then they were different to what they are now; for the first had
their Partition uneven, being the parting Space, whereby it was less
proper for Hand-hoeing, which I then seldom used, except for absolute
Necessity, as to cleanse our Poppies, and the like. The Intervals also
were too narrow for constant annual Crops.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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