The horse-hoing husbandry: or, an essay on the principles of tillage and vegetation ... Wherein is shewn a method of introducing a sort of vineyard-culture into the corn-fields, in order to increase their product, and diminish the common expence; by the use of instruments described in cuts / By I.T. [J. Tull].

  • Jethro Tull
Date:
1733
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The horse-hoing husbandry: or, an essay on the principles of tillage and vegetation ... Wherein is shewn a method of introducing a sort of vineyard-culture into the corn-fields, in order to increase their product, and diminish the common expence; by the use of instruments described in cuts / By I.T. [J. Tull]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Frolls are over, as there is of the early planted ; for the later ’tis planted the lefs Time the Earth has t# fubfide and grow hard. Note, By Winter we do not mean only thofe Months that are properly fo reckoned, but alfo fuch other Months which have hard Frofls in them, as January, February, and fometimes the Beginning of March. P. 6l. L. 5. Very large or •very J,mall, in Proportion to the Nourijhment given them.] Like as the Vines*, if well nourilhed, bring large Bunches of Grapes ; But if ill nourifhed, they 'produce few Bunches, and thofe fmall ones, and many Clafpers are formed, which would have been Bunches, if they had had fufficient Nourifhment given them at the proper Time. __ P. 61. L. 14. Makes a greater Crop from a Tenth Part of the Plants, & f.] The Fattof this nobody can doubt of, who has obferved the different Products of flrong and of weak Plants, how the one exceeds the ether. ; ' . ■ '. Equivocus in his Advertifement to April, quotes Authors, who affirm, that a fingle Grain of Smyrna Wheat produced 9792 Grains; one Grain of Barley 18,coo, and one Bean 1050 Beans; but ’tis reckoned a very great Increafe, when our fown Fields produce a ten-fold Crop, that is, ten Grains for one that is fown ; which is 9782 lefs than the Increafe of Wheat by that Author related. The greateft Difference of having an equal Crop from a fmall Number of ftrong Plants, and from a great Number of weak ones, is, that the Soil is vaftly lefs exhaufted by the former than by the latter, not only from the latter’s Exhaufting more in proportion to their Number when young, and whilft each of them confumes as much Nourifhment, as each of the fmall Number; but alfo from the different Increafe that a llrong Plant makes by receiving the fame Proportion of Food with a weak one : For it appears from Dr. Woodward's Experiments, that the Plant which receives the leaf Encreafe carries off the greatefi Quantity of Nourifhment in Proportion to that Encreafe; and that ’tis the fame with an Animal, all who are acquainted with Fatting of Swine know ; for they eat much more Food daily for the firft two Weeks of their being put into the Stye than they do afterwards when they thrive fafter ; the fatter they grow, the lefs they eat. Hence, I think, it may be inferred, that a Plant, which by never having been robbed or Hunted by o- ther Plants, is ftrong, receives a much greater Increafe from an equal Quantity of Food, than a Number of weak Plants (as thick ones are) equalling the Bulk of the fingle ftrong Plant do. And this of the Do&or’s have I feen by my own Obfervations confirmed in the Field, in Potatoes, Tur- neps, Wheat, and Barley ; a following Crop fucceeds better after an equal Crop confifting of a bare com¬ petent Number of ftrong Plants, than after a Crop of thick weak ones, ceteris paribus. Thus the hoed Crops, if well managed, confifting of fewer and ftronger Plants than the fown Crops of equal Produce, exhauft the Ground lefs, whereby, and by the much (l had almoft faid infinitely^ greater Pulveration of the Soil, indifferent good Land may, for any thing I have yet feen to the contrary, produce profitable Crops always without Manure, or Change of Species ; if the Soil be proper for it in refped of Heat and Moifture ; and alfo as Crops of fome Species by their living longer, by their greater Bulk or dif¬ ferent Conftitution, exhauft more than others, Refpedl ought to be had to the Degree of Richnefs of the Soil*, that is to produce each Species. The Sowing and the Hoing Husbandry differ fo much both in Pulveration and Exhauftion, that no good Argument can be drawn from the former againft the latter, efpecially by Equivocus, whofe Works demon- ftrate him to be more ignorant of both, than any Author that (T believe^ ever wrote of Husbandry before him, and ’tis to be hoped, that ever will after him ; the Defign of Equivocus in Writing, being only to de¬ fame nottoinftiuft. P. 62. L. 3. Lof becaufe the Wheat Roots do not reach it.] They do reach through all the Mould fas fhall be proved by and by) and yet may leave fufficient Pafture behind; becaufe ’tis impoffible for them to comet into Contact with all the Mould in one Year, no more than when ten Horfes are put into a Hundred A- cres Iff good Pafture, their Mouths come into Contadl with all the Grafs to eat it in one Summer, though they will go all over it, as the Vine Roots go all over the Soil of a Vine-yard without exhaufting it all j becaufe thofe Roots feed only fuch a bare competent Quantity of Plants, which do not overftock their Pafture. The Superficies of the fibrous Roots of a proper Number of Wheat Plants, bear a very fmall Proportion to the Superficies of the fine Parts of the pulveriz’d Earth, they leed on in thefe Intervals; for one cubical Foot of this Earth may, as is (hewn in/. 17. have many a thouland Foot of internal Superficies: But thia is in Proportion to the Degree of its Pulveration ; and that Degree may be fuch as is fufficient to maintain a competent Number of Wheat Plants without over-exhaufting the vegetable Pafture, but not fufficient to maintain thofe, and a great Stock of Weeds befides, without over-exhaulting it. And this was plainly feen in a Field of Wheat drilled on fix foot Ridges, when the South Ends of fome of the Ridges, and the North Ends of others, had their Partitions Hand-hoed and cleanfed of Weeds early in the Spring, the oppofite Ends remaining full of a fmall Species of Weeds called Crow-needies, which fo exhaufted the whole Intervals of the weedy Part of the Ridges, that the next Year the whole Field being drilled again with Wheat exadlly in the Middle of the laft Intervals, the following Crop very plainly diftinguilhed how far each Ridge had its Partitions made clean of thofe fmall Weeds in the Spring, from the other End, where the Weeds remained till full grown : The Crop of the former was twice as good as that of the latter, even where both were cleanfed of Weeds the next Spring. This Crop Handing only upon that Part of the Mould which was far- theft from the Rows of the precedent Crop, proves that the Roots, botli of the A heat and Weeds, did enter all the Earth of the former Intervals. It was alfo obfervable, that where the Partitions of two of the fix-foot Ridges had been in the precedent Year, cleanfed of Weeds, and thofe of the adjoining Ridges on each Side of them not cleanfed, the Row that was the next Year planted exactly in the Middle of the Interval between thole two Ridges, was perceivably better than either of the two Rows planted in the Intervals on the other Side of each of them : The rea- fon of which Difference mult be, That the Middle of the Interval that was between the two cleanfed Ridges was fed on by the Wheat only, and by no Weeds; but the other two Intervals were fed on by the Wheat on one Side, and by both the Wheat and Weeds on the other Side of each. There were in the fame Field feveral Ridges together that had the Ends of their Rows of Wheat plowed out by the Hoe-plow, and their other Ends cleanfed of Weeds: This was done on purpofe to fee what Effedl 11 a Fallow would have on the next Crop, which was indeed extraordinary ; for thefe fallowed Ends of the Ridges |