JETHRO TULL’S 
 
 SYSTEM OE 
 
 
DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/tillagesubstitut01burn 
 

TILLAGE 
 
 A SUBSTITUTE FOR MANURE, 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 MODERN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRECEPTS AND PRACTICE 
 
 JETHRO TULL. 
 
 INCLUDING AN 
 
 EPITOME OF TULL’S OPERATIVE DIRECTIONS IN SUCCESSIVE 
 UNMANURED CORN CULTURE, 
 
 AND THE PARTICULARS OF 
 
 LOIS WEEDON HUSBANDRY, 
 
 AND OTHER INSTANCES OF 
 
 TOLL’S METHOD OF FARMING. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER BURNETT, M.A., 
 
 LAND AGENT, 
 
 Member of the Royal Agricultural Society, and of the Central Farmers’ Club, London. 
 
 LONDON : WHITTAKER AND CO., 
 
 DUBLIN: ALEX. THOM & SONS; H. ROBERTS, CHESTER. 
 
 1 8 5 9 . 
 
“ No canon having limited what we shall think in agriculture, 
 nor condemned any of its tenets for heresy, every man is therein a 
 Free-thinker, and must think according to the dictates of his own 
 reason, whether he will or no. And such freedom is given, now- 
 a-days, in speculations in natural philosophy, that it is common to 
 see people, even in print, maintain that there are Antipodes ; that 
 the earth moves round the sun, and that he doth not set in the sea, 
 without being censured for these and many other formerly heterodox 
 opinions ; and any one may now, upon solid arguments, contradict 
 Aristotle himself publicly any where, except in the schools.'' — Tutj,. 
 
L2I.SI 
 
 'B?L L /T 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, 
 
 M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 The kindness you have so greatly vouchsafed 
 to myself will, • trust, induce you to give an indulgent 
 reception to the following little volume, which, from motives of 
 gratitude, I now most respectfully dedicate to you. 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your ever obliged, and most humble Servant, 
 
 Dee Bank, May. 1859. 
 
 A. BURNETT. 
 
 n r- o 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 There is perhaps no circumstance in modern husbandry 
 better ascertained, or which, as an experiment, has attracted 
 greater agricultural interest, than the fact that on a single 
 acre of good clay land, valued at £2 of rent, including tithe, 
 the Rev. Samuel Smith, of Lois Weedon, Northamptonshire, 
 has grown twelve successive crops of wheat without the appli- 
 cation to the soil of anj r manure whatsoever. What, how- 
 ever, gives importance to the experiment is that neither 
 degeneration of quantity nor dimunition of quality, in the 
 yearly produce, have exhibited themselves in this long period, 
 but, on the contrary, an acreable yearly average of thirty- 
 four bushels of marketable corn, at an average annual ex- 
 pense of about £6, (including rent, and every other out-going 
 up to, and including marketing,) has sustainedly been har- 
 vested, affording this simple but significant calculation : — 
 
 Thirty bushels of wheat, at the tithe 
 
 acreage of 7s per bushel £11 18 0 
 
 Rent, tithe, and expenses 6 0 4£ 
 
 Yearly profit per acre, besides the 
 
 value of the straw 5 17 7^ 
 
 <rn 
 
 e_jJ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 iv 
 
 Other experiments similarly conducted, and hitherto attended 
 with like success, are on trial in various parts of the country. 
 
 In perusing the records of English Agricultural Polity 
 backwards, instances identically the same in principle as the 
 foregoing, and not less relatively remunerative, are, from time 
 to time, to be met with, till at last the enquiry terminates in 
 the case of Jethro Tull, the inventor of the system, who, 
 before his death in 1741, had grown thirteen unmanured crops 
 of corn, without intermission, and without decrease, in one and 
 the same ground ; and in the latter years of his practice, tilled 
 in the same method, no less than 190 acres of wheat of a 
 season, — with this immense practical superiority over the 
 majority of the amateur experiments of the present day, 
 namely, the use of the plough for inverting the soil, and not 
 of the spade or fork, as in them. 
 
 In no aspect of the grain market, and most as- 
 suredly not in its present one, can it ever be irrelevant to 
 inquire whether Tullian Corn Culture would, or would not 
 be more profitable than a continuance in the present 
 method of Cereal Husbandry ; and, accordingly, the design 
 of the following little work is, — 1st, to relate the history, from 
 Tull’s time upwards, of this unmair’red and unintermittent 
 mode of Com Husbandry ; 2ndly, to explain the entire 
 accordance of that mode with the physical laws of culture ; 
 and, 3rdly, to set forth in methodized and concentrated form 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 V 
 
 Tull’s own directions for its operative performance. This 
 done, the practical man is left to draw his own conclusions, 
 whether the facts and principles involved in the narrative do 
 not point to the expediency of a considerable measure of 
 reform in the present routine management of the Tillage 
 Farm. 
 
 Thus, for instance, if, as many leading agriculturists affirm, 
 (and to whose opinions the author himself is disposed to 
 assent,) Grazing Husbandry must be more resorted to in the 
 corn districts than it now is, the reader has in the following 
 chapters presented to him what there is of evidence to shew, 
 that Corn can profitably be grown without the stimulus of 
 manure ; and, hence, that the manurial products of the 
 Homestead may be exclusively and more advantageously 
 distributed on the permanent grass fields. 
 
 Again, if, as numerous other agricultural authorities argue, 
 the change (for probably there are few reflecting men who do 
 not discern signs of near approaching change of some kind) 
 must consist in increasing the breadth of cereal culture, in 
 room of lessened cattle crop growing, it is fit that those of 
 that way of thinking should be enabled, from the actual history 
 and facts of Tullian Husbandry, — -now, for the first time, 
 systematically related — to determine whether the heavy outlay 
 of capital, the great annual expense, and, too frequently, the 
 actual loss involved in the manufacture of manure by means 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 of live stock, especially on soils untitted to the folding of 
 sheep on the root field, are not wholly, or to a large extent, 
 avoidable evils in the management of Corn Farming. 
 
 In the introductory chapter ample testimony will be found 
 to prove that, anterior to the engrafting of fallow cattle crops 
 on the husbandry of England, pure cereal tillage prospered 
 abundantly under circumstances infinitely less favourable to 
 its success than those of the present day. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 It may here be mentioned, that those articles proposed 
 in the Prospectus of the work to be inserted in the Appendix, 
 but now omitted, have been embodied, in other forms, in the 
 text, which has also been otherwise considerably extended. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I'Atjrr, . 
 
 CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 CHAPTER H.— TULL’S AGRICULTURAL BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Tull received a University Education, and was bred to the 
 Bar. — Obliged to abandon bis Profession from constitutional ill 
 health. — In 1701 began to Farm an Inheritance in Oxfordshire.— 
 There became the Inventor of the first English Drill Sowing 
 Machine, and of Drill Husbandry.— His own Account of the cir- 
 cumstances which led to these Inventions. — Their Success. — 
 Obliged to Travel abroad for his health. — Observed the Hus- 
 bandries of Continental Countries. — Returned Home, and began 
 to Farm another Inheritance in Berkshire. — Studied the Natural 
 Sciences, and resolved on Adopting a Reformed Method of 
 Husbandry 18 
 
 CHAPTER III.— THE OLD TILLAGE HUSBANDRY 
 OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The Husbandry of Tull’s time was part Pastoral and part 
 Tillage. — The Management of the Tillage portion of the Farm of 
 that day described. — Was exclusively Cereal in its nature. — The 
 Bare Fallow. — The Defects of the System. — These, however, in 
 operative details, and not in principle.— The Old Economy of 
 Manuring very inept. — Tull’s belief that the benefits of the Bare 
 Fallow were due chiefly to the thorough Tillage, and not to the 
 imperfect Dunging it received. — His conception of applying the 
 thorough Tillage of Vineyard Husbandry to the growing Field 
 Crops. — The then recent Introduction of Turnips and Clover in- 
 to English Farming, adverted to. — Tull actually applies the Vine- 
 yard Interculture to Turnips. — He thereby became the Inventor 
 of the existing form of Root Tillage, and of the first English 
 Horse-Hoe. — The Sequel of this Treatise to be limited to Tull’s 
 Method of Corn Culture. — His Book on Horse-Hoeing, published 
 in 1733 27 
 
 a 
 
V1U 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV.— OF TULL'S BOOK, AND OF HIS FARM. 
 
 After perfecting Drilled Turnip Culture on his own Farm, Tull 
 abandoned it for pure Cereal Husbandry, — His practical success 
 became much noticed, — Urged by leading Agriculturists, he pub- 
 lished his Principles in his Book, entitled “ Horse-Hoeing Hus- 
 bandry.” — His Farm described. — Its Extent about 200 Acres. — 
 
 Its Quality a thin Chalk Soil 35 
 
 CHAPTER V.— OF MANURES. 
 
 The Principles of Modern Science respecting them, premised. 
 
 — Extraneous Manures. — The Grosser kinds, Marling, Liming, 
 
 &c. — The more concentrated kinds, Salt, Nitrates, Guano, &c. — 
 Neither of these classes of Fertilizers used by Tull. — Dung 
 Manuring. — This kind only practised by him. — Its physical and 
 Chemical Action on the Soil. — Tillage an important Substantive 
 Means of obtaining “ Manurial ” Matter from the Atmosphere. — 
 Tillage alone competent to promote profitable Fertility in Suc- 
 cessive Corn Growing. — Tull’s Practice based on that Principle. 
 
 — But he laid down no General Rule against the Use of Manures 
 in Aid of Tillage. Warned the Manuring Farmer, however, that 
 Great Produce and Great Profit were not necessarily synonomous. 
 —His Maxims respecting Manures quoted in his own words. — 
 Recommends Small and Frequent Applications, rather than Heavy 
 Single Manurings. — Professor Way quoted 41 
 
 CHAP. VI.— § I. THEORY OF TILLAGE GENERALLY. 
 
 Definitions of Tillage. — Its Physical Effects in Consolidating 
 too Porous Soils, and Opening Close Textures. — The Openness of 
 Soils Indispensable to the Condensation of Dew. — Experimental 
 Proofs of this. — The Fertilizing Effects of the Atmosphere on 
 Soils. — An Instance cited from Evelyn. — Thompson’s Modem 
 Discovery of the Chemico-Absorbent Power of Soils, cited. — 
 Way’s further Discoveries, connected with the same Phenomenon. 
 
 — Liebig cited on the same subject. — Theory of its Operation 
 Relatively to Vegetation. — The Manuring Influences of the Air 
 and Rain dwelt on. — These in Proportion to the Tilth of Soils. — 
 Way’s Recognition of the Soundness of Tull’s “Convictions ” in 
 Agricultural Philosophy. — Practical Deductions Arising out of 
 the Theory of Atmospheric “ Manuring.” 51 
 
 § II. OF HORSE-HOEING OR INTERCULTURAL 
 TILLAGE. 
 
 True Tullian Ilorse-Hoeing Defined. — Its Thorough Eradica- 
 tion of Weeds. — Its Signal Effects on the Growth of Plants. — 
 Keeps Plants Moist in Dry Weather. — The Physical Causes of 
 .this Explained fifi 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 CHAPTER VII.— THEORY OF TILLAGE, CONTINUED. 
 
 Definitions Respecting the Cause of Different Degrees of Fer- 
 tility in Soils at Different Times. — Of the Pores of Soils. — Their 
 Specific Office. — The “Pasture” of Plants. — The Meaning of that 
 Term Explained. — The Nutritive Agents concerned in Vegetation. 
 
 — The Soil. — Water. — Air. — Tull’s Conceptions respecting Atmo- 
 spheric “ Nitre.” — The Functions of the Soil Relatively to the 
 Atmosphere. — Want of Air one of the Causes of Blight and 
 Lodging in Corn. — Heat and Light. — Want of Light also a Cause 
 «f Blight and Lodging in overcrowded Crops 72 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.— THEORY OF TILLAGE, CONTINUED. 
 
 § 1, Of the Roots of Corn Plants. — Their Instincts in Search 
 of Food. — Their Function of Subdivision. — This increased by 
 Mechanical Severance Analogous to Pruning. — Liebig cited. — § 2, 
 
 Of the Tillering of Corn Plants. — This Function of primary im- 
 portance in Tullian Husbandry. — Thin Sowing Augments it. — 
 Quantity of Seed per Acre Sown by Tull. — Principles which 
 guided him in Sowing. — Usual number of Stalks to a Single Seed 
 in Broadcast Sowing. — Great Increase of these in his Method. — 
 
 § 3, Of Nourishing the Plant by Tillage during its Growth. — 
 Great proportion of Plants which Die Out in Ordinary Culture. — 
 
 § 4, Of the Progressive Amelioration of the Soil produced by 
 Horse-Hoeing Tillage. — The Reasons Explained. — Horse-Hoed 
 Corn less Exhaustive than Sown Corn. — The proportion of Grain 
 greater, and of Straw less, in Horse-Hoed Com than Broadcast. 
 
 — Six Successive Crops without Dung or Fallow instanced in con- 
 firmation of this — Nothing added to the Soil in these instances 
 except, what Evelyn calls, the “ Celestial Influences” 86 
 
 CHAPTER IX.— AN EPITOME OF TULL'S DIRECTIONS 
 
 FOR THE PRACTICE OF HIS SYSTEM OF TILLAGE. 
 
 § 1, Of changing the Fields from the Old to the New Method. 
 
 — § 2, Of Sowing.— § 3, Of Horse-Hoeing. — § 4, Of Hand-Hoe- 
 ing. — § 5, Of Reaping. — § 6, Of Ploughing the Stubbles, and 
 preparing the ground for the next crop. — The Great Operative 
 Economy of Tullian Husbandry 103 
 
 CHAPTER X.— WHAT THE REMUNERATIVE SUCCESS 
 OF TULL’S FARMING. 
 
 § 1, Of His Success. — This Testified at the Time by the Public 
 Voice. — The Evidence of his Book on the Subject. — Arthur 
 Young’s Conclusive Testimony on this subject. — § 2, Why Tull’s 
 Principle of Tillage a Substitute for Manure was never introduced 
 into Corn Husbandry. — This Owing partly to Prejudice. — But 
 chiefly to the then Opposing Advantages of Alternate Husbandry. 
 
 — § 3, The Original Reasons for Alternate Husbandry, now much 
 modified. — Tillage Implements immensely Improved. — Extrane- 
 ous Manures must induce a change of Cultural Practice, ...... 120 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI.— OF INSTANCES SUBSEQUENT TO 
 
 TULL’S OF INTERCULTURAL SUCCESSIVE CORN 
 
 HUSBANDRY, AVITHOUT MANURE. 
 
 Lois AVeedon Instance. — In every respect Tullian in principle. 
 
 — Tlie AVork on “ Lois AVeedon Husbandry” quoted. — The Narra- 
 tive of it. and Tull's Book on the Subject of Acreable Produce 
 compared. — Their mutual similarity. — Eight other Experimental 
 Instances, tabulated 140 
 
 CHAP. XII.— OF THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS, 
 
 AND THEIR BEARING ON TULLIAN HUSBANDRY. 
 
 § 1, Certain characteristics of these experiments stated. — Con- 
 ducted irrespective of industrial profit. — The Cultural means 
 employed in them not recorded. — They throw no light either on 
 the Theory or Practice of Tillage. — Cair’ds Observations on them 
 quoted.— They tend to prove that every soil has a Tillage zero, 
 below which no mode of cropping can reduce its yearly yield. — 
 This Observation already anticipated by Tull. — The zero of Roth- 
 amsted Successive and Unmanured Corn Culture. — The zero of 
 Tullian Culture. — The productive results of the Rotliamsted and 
 Holkham Experiments in Successive Unmanured and Manured 
 Corn Growing tabulated. — § 2, The Old Scottish Husbandry 
 cited. — § 3, These Experiments disprove the Theory of degener- 
 ation of species from Successive Culture. — This conclusion also 
 anticipated by Tull. — § 4, Theory of Nitrogenous Manuring. — 
 Such Manuring competent with only ordinary Tillage to produce 
 abundant Successive Corn Crops. — But Nitrogenous applications, 
 in unfavourable seasons, conducive to deranged functions in the 
 plants. — This objection not applicable to Tullian Culture. — Tull’s 
 
 Practice cited by Professor AY ay on this point 162 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Recapitulation and Summary. — Young’s Eulogy on Tull 20G 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. — Extracts from an Article in the Farmers' Journal, on Tullian 
 
 Husbandry conducted with the Plough i 
 
 II. — Extracts from the Report of a Discussion in the “ Central 
 
 Farmers’ Club,” in which the Degeneration of the Crops of 
 Alternate Husbandry is noticed xviii 
 
 III. — Table showing the Comparative Rent of Land, and the 
 
 Acreable Produce of Wheat, in 1770, and 1850-51 xxiv 
 
TILLAGE A SUBSTITUTE FOR MANURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 It is undeniable that, coincident with the intro- 
 duction and spread of Root Culture, English 
 Tillage Husbandry has immensely advanced in 
 improvement. Nevertheless it is now no heresy 
 to say, that, from the many changes in agricultural 
 resources and relations within the last twenty 
 years, the specific advantages of Rooting are 
 materially neutralized ; while, moreover, many 
 grave objections, to which it has ever been amena- 
 ble, are gradually becoming more apparent, like 
 rocks and shallows divulged by the turn of tide. 
 Thus : — 
 
 1 . As a cleansing crop, Roots possess no sub- 
 stantive advantages over any other kind of drilled 
 plant subjected to thorough Horse-Hoeing Inter- 
 culture ; while, again, the shade of their broad 
 foliage, once deemed beneficial to the soil, is now 
 justly denounced as an injurious interception of 
 
 B 
 
4 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 that free access of light to the surface, and of air 
 and atmospheric vapour to the internal pores of 
 the vegetable mould, which it is one of the chief 
 ends of modern cultivation to promote in the 
 fullest degree. 
 
 2. As a food for live stock, chemical analysis, 
 as well as actual experiment in feeding, has deter- 
 mined that of every 100 tons of Turnips or Man- 
 golds carted to the homestead (to the great detri- 
 ment of the soil, and no less distress of the teams,) 
 about 88 tons weight is ivater, devoid altogether 
 of any animal nutrition whatever ; and that the 
 dead weight product, in butcher meat, of a ton 
 of turnip consumed by feeding stock, is very little 
 more than the third part of a single stone, or 
 about 5 pounds ! Hence, when Turnips are let to 
 the store-farmer to be fed off the ground, they 
 fetch only from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. per ton, and, in 
 some localities, nothing beyond the manurial 
 benefits resulting from their consumption on the 
 spot. 
 
 3. As a much relied on source of plentiful 
 marmre, organic chemistry asserts and it proves that, 
 at best, this amounts to no more than a partial 
 restoration to the soil of that enormous drain of 
 fertility abstracted in the aggregate by Roots in 
 
TILLAGE AN1) MANURING. 
 
 5 
 
 their growth — a good yield of Turnips, for in- 
 stance, consuming nearly thrice as much mineral 
 pabulum as a fair return of wheat; while, further, 
 the time and strength of the draught animals in 
 hauling 100 tons to the fallow field, are expended 
 not only on less than 30 tons of really fertilizing 
 matter, but on more than 70 tons of caput mortuum 
 in the condition of absolutely inefficacious moisture. 
 
 4. But, be that as it may (many will say), liow 
 palpable the benefit of Roots in the modern system 
 of Stall Feeding ! Now, in reply to this, it 
 may preliminarily be conceded that, in point ol 
 fact, a very large amount of butcher meat has 
 come to be manufactured on tillage farms, which 
 could not have been so without an extensive 
 cultivation of Roots ; but then, we would in re- 
 plication enquire, What of the profitable results ? 
 Now, in the first place, it is to be noted as a very 
 singular fact that, although Mr. James Caird, the 
 author of “ English Agriculture,'' when conducting 
 his statistical enquiries, was desirous to ascertain 
 the annual produce of stock on corn farms gene- 
 rally throughout the kingdom, he was unable to 
 obtain sufficient data for forming any estimate on 
 that point of husbandry ; neither is it possible to 
 extract from general Agricultural Literature any 
 
6 i'H e ruixcrpLEs of 
 
 national profit and loss account of Root Feeding, 
 Hence, although every one probably is agreed 
 that that expedient would be ruinously unremu- 
 nerative but for the manure it produces in aid of 
 the corn crops, it is impossible to determine 
 whether the article thus manufactured is not 
 procured at much greater cost than its real intrinsic 
 value compensates. If, however, we resort to 
 another department of statistics, more successfully 
 examined by the same writer, we do indeed find 
 that the vast amount of capital, skill, enterprize, 
 and superior education embarked on Alternate 
 Husbandry (of which cattle crops are so important 
 elements), has, in the last fourscore years, raised 
 the acreable rent of the tillage districts about 87 
 per cent ; yet, we also learn that, in the grazing 
 counties, where root cropping to any extent is 
 extremely exceptional, and where, comparatively 
 speaking, neither capital, skill, nor enterprize, 
 have generally prevailed, the average rise per 
 acre in the same interval has been 30 per cent, 
 greater ; — thus leading inevitably to the conclusion, 
 either that the occupier of the mixed husbandry 
 districts, contrary to the common belief, has 
 appropriated to himself a larger proportion of the 
 profits of the soil than has fallen to the lot of his 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 pastoral brother; or, which is much more pro- 
 bable, that in some branch or other of Alternate 
 Husbandry (in all likelihood, the root growing and 
 cattle feeding department), a large amount of un- 
 productive industry is wasted, to the prejudice of 
 both tenant and landlord. Addressed as these 
 arguments are to the owner and occupier of im- 
 proved property, it is unnecessary here to enter on 
 any question respecting either the past or present 
 merits of Alternate husbandry, as an agent in 
 the amelioration of neglected estates. 
 
 5. But has not abundant cereal fruitfulness 
 ever prevailed in conjunction with Root Growing 1 
 Now the statistics of the matter are these: 
 that the average annual produce of wheat per 
 acre since the period when corn began to suffer 
 a divided dominion with Roots, has, on the ap- 
 proximate calculations of Caird, only risen from 
 3 to 4 bushels, (i. e. from 23, or 24, to 26|), and 
 other kinds of grain, in no greater proportion ; 
 while, again, it is undeniable that within the 
 whole compass of agricultural evidence, scientific 
 or practical, there are no data whatever to warrant 
 the attribution of this surprisingly small increase 
 (all things considered) wholly or even mainly to 
 the dung products of fallow crops, but data 
 
8 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 sufficient to ascribe it chiefly to drainage, to in- 
 closing, to shelter, to the use of better sorts of 
 seed, to extraneous manures, and, though last not 
 least, to the greatly improved methods of tilling 
 the soil which have contemporaneously sprung up. 
 
 6. Is then the farmer to dismiss from his mind 
 all confidence in this hitherto much relied on 
 expedient of Root Husbandry 1 To which, the 
 reply may be stated thus : That not by its 
 use but its abuse has any miscarriage in modern 
 practice been occasioned. For instance: the old 
 arable farming of England throve well (see after , 
 IT 11, p. 15,) yet without any aid from the manurial 
 products of either roots or clover, or any other 
 kind of tilled cattle crop. And when green crops 
 were first proposed to be engrafted on that prior 
 husbandry, the deep thinking Jethro Tull pro- 
 nounced with no uncertain sound their adaptation 
 to grazing rather than to cereal management, 
 and furnished, in his own practice, the type of 
 pure corn growing. Thirty years after Tull’s 
 death, arose Arthur Young, that great apostle 
 of mixed agriculture ; and, at a time when the 
 prices of wool, butcher-meat, and dairy-food, 
 afforded much less profit to grazing than now, 
 being only about half their present value (bread 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 9 
 
 costing about as much then as now), what he 
 taught was this, that in English farming, grazing 
 was of primary, and arable management of only 
 secondary importance. Fully impressed, however, 
 with that imperfection inherent in pure grazing 
 in northern climates, namely, the pinched con- 
 dition of the stock, both in food and litter, during 
 the rigour of winter, Young inculcated that the 
 proportioned farm, of all others the most profit- 
 able, is one possessing, in connection with and 
 subservient to permanent grass, as much arable 
 land under a rotation of roots, clover, and straw 
 crops, as will yield ample food and comfort 
 throughout the cold months to that entire number 
 of animals, and no more, which the grazing acre- 
 age will competently maintain during the summer. 
 Guided by the then ordinary acreable yields of 
 tillage produce, Young conceived that a third 
 under permanent grass, and two-thirds under 
 the plough (the latter cropped in equal propor- 
 tions of — first turnips, second corn, third clover, 
 fourth corn), would form, in most instances, an 
 economical distribution of the area of farms, and 
 hence the origin of the four-field system ; but it 
 was of the very essence of his teaching on this 
 subject, that, not relative acreage , but relative 
 
10 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OE 
 
 produce, was to form the basis of apportionment, 
 insomuch that, if from more productive manage- 
 ment subsequent to the first acreable arrangement, 
 the tilled part should yield more than enough for 
 the winter sustenance of the summer-kept stock, 
 then the arable division, must suffer curtailment 
 by converting an adequate modicum thereof into 
 permanent grass, so as thereby to restore that 
 cardinal requisite, — the equilibrium of summer and 
 winter provender. That the later generations of 
 tillage farmers did not subscribe to this logical, 
 sagacious, and practical advice, is too true ; for 
 not only did they succeed in raising heavier crops 
 of both roots and artificial grasses (and this, in 
 itself, of course to their praise) without that 
 success leading them proportionally to increase the 
 grazing, and to lessen the tillage dimensions 
 of their holdings, but they actually converted 
 much of the former into the latter, — and, in par- 
 ticular, augmented so greatly the annual breadth 
 of roots, that from a seventh, a sixth, or a fifth, 
 these ultimately came, as they now most commonly 
 do, to engross a fourth part of the farm. Will any 
 candid agriculturist confidently pronounce that this 
 momentous disregard of the injunctions bequeathed 
 by Tull, the greatest genius in husbandry of any 
 
TILLAGE ANI) MANU1UNG. 
 
 11 
 
 age or country, and by Young, the Father of 
 English Rural Economy, has not been a very 
 grave error in judgment ? or (if that mode of 
 expression be too unqualified) that a more or less 
 modified resumption of the principles and practice 
 inculcated by these two foremost masters in Israel, 
 is not one of the fittest subjects which can occupy 
 the reflections of landlord, agent, and tenant, in 
 a country unrivalled for its climate and soil in 
 permanent pastures, and for the pastoral skill of 
 its rural population, but now open to unrestrained 
 competition in the corn market with foreign 
 regions naturally possessing much more cereal 
 fertility ? 
 
 7 . Meanwhile, those owners whose liberality 
 has most promoted alternate husbandry, will 
 be those in whose breasts the strongest doubts 
 must arise whether, in the face of the larger 
 rental returns of grazing management, it is 
 expedient longer to press forward in the same 
 comparatively ungrateful regime. And as for the 
 occupier, what could he have done more to 
 his possession that he has not done in it ? 
 Yet, epidemic pestilence decimates the impos- 
 ing ranks of his feeding-houses ; and physi- 
 ology tells him that such ever has been, and 
 
12 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 ever will be, the inevitable penalty of the un- 
 natural crowding together of animals, especially 
 under cover, unless sanitary precautions be strictly 
 practised of a kind, to all practical purposes, 
 impossible in the modern method of stall-feeding. 
 The fly destroys the seedling turnips, or disease 
 corrupts the matured ones ; or, should neither of 
 these too frequent fatalities occur, the heavier the 
 crop the greater the injury done to the tilth of the 
 land by the operation of cartage. The clover seeds 
 refuse to grow, thereby conjointly with the uncer- 
 tainty of both turnips and mangolds, ofttimes most 
 seriously deranging the preconcerted plans of the 
 season. The soil, saturated with the stercoraceous 
 products of extraneous feeding stuffs of every con- 
 ceivable kind produces rankness, without strength 
 in the corn stalk ; and lodging, and its conco- 
 mitants of light grain, innutritious straw and smo- 
 thered grass seeds, are the consequence. Mean- 
 while contemporaneously with these obstacles to 
 success in the existing form of agricultural prac- 
 tice, all through the kingdom marts are springing 
 up of adventitious manures, economical of labour in 
 distribution on the land, and active in effect. Year 
 after year is producing new implements constructed 
 with consummate mechanical skill, to render till- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 13 
 
 age at once more efficient and less costly. Steam 
 even is pressing forward its almost illimitable 
 energies to swell the number of the modern hus- 
 bandman’s agents in field work ; and as if all these 
 were not reasons enough for the English farmer 
 reviewing a now antiquated system of manage- 
 ment, which, both in weft and woof is unsuitable 
 to the present day, the truth of Jethro Tull’s two 
 propositions of, 1st, Tillage a substitute for manure; 
 and 2nd, Successive corn growing not only consistent 
 with the vegetative nature of cereal plants , but with 
 abundant industrial remuneration, have been re- 
 asserted and re-demonstrated in a manner that 
 will no longer excuse a fair and deliberate hearing, 
 except from prejudice and ignorance. 
 
 8. Hence, already it has been mooted by lead- 
 ing agriculturists in the corn counties, actuated 
 doubtless by the doubled value of grazing 
 products in the wool, the butcher, and the dairy 
 markets of the last eighty years, and by the 
 greater industrial economy of grass management, 
 indicated in the greater comparative rise of rents in 
 the pastoral districts, — that a reformed system, 
 founded more broadly on grazing husbandry, must 
 now be pursued. 
 
 9. Other practical men, of equal professional 
 
14 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 authority, also would diminish the proportion of 
 roots, not, however, to increase the grass land 
 area, hut rather the corn-growing basis, in the 
 belief that untrammelled from the alternate system, 
 corn could, by such a change, be cultivated at less 
 cost, and to greater profit; these holding, 1st, that 
 any soil may, by the due use of modern tillage 
 mechanism, be kept clean and in good heart with 
 comparatively little or even no dependence on 
 cattle crop manure; and Sndly, that provided a 
 soil be kept constantly clean and hearty, no 
 matter by what cultural processes, there ought to 
 be no dread by either landlord or tenant of return- 
 ing to an improved adaptation of that principle of 
 pure corn farming successfully practised in 
 England before the introduction of alternate 
 husbandry — these latter reformers being, in truth, 
 followers of Jethro Tull, as the former are of 
 Young. 
 
 10. But whether Young s or Tull's principles 
 are to prevail, or whether both are destined, under 
 different circumstances, to run contemporaneous 
 courses, Tull’s two propositions, stated above in 
 H 7, are equally important in either case, because, 
 in a reformed practice of mixed grazing and tillage 
 husbandry, the policy would be to make tillage 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 15 
 
 play its maximum fertilizing function in the arable 
 division of the land without any, or at most, with 
 the minimum manuriai aid, and thereby preserve 
 the greatest possible quantity of the dung-court 
 products for application to that part of the farm 
 which, devoted to permanent grass, can take no 
 benefit from tillage : of course, in any new system 
 of pure corn farming, manure producing crops 
 could largely, if not wholly, be dispensed with, if 
 it be true that thoroughly tilled, cleaned, and 
 dried corn land is largely or even wholly indepen- 
 dent of manure. 
 
 11. Doubtless, however, the notion that unin- 
 termittent corn growing can ever be adopted in 
 any system of husbandry, consistently with the 
 lasting interests of either the lord or the tiller of 
 the soil, will, by many, be scouted as simply 
 monstrous or incredible. Is it not, nevertheless, 
 a matter of indisputable statistics that, prior to 
 the middle of the last century, the tillage farming 
 of England, as already asserted, was both non- 
 alternate and all but non -manuriai ? (See also 
 ch. III.) Is it not also true that while such was 
 really the national system of corn growing, so 
 plentiful was the yield that, after supplying the 
 wants of a rapidly-increasing population, there was 
 
16 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 still enough, and to spare, to form an important 
 branch of export commerce, and that too so 
 wonderfully expansive as to rise from 8g- millions 
 of quarters of wheat, barley, and malt, shipped 
 in the period between 1700 and 1725, up to 
 nearly 14 millions exported in the next twenty- 
 five years, besides no inconsiderable quantities of 
 oatmeal and rye ? and although the question 
 whether, since the alternation of green crops with 
 corn, the aggregate cereal produce of the kingdom 
 has increased or diminished, is involved in 
 great doubt, certain it is that no augmentation 
 (if, indeed, there he not an actual falling off), 
 consequent on alternate husbandry, can, on any 
 known statistical facts, be asserted. 
 
 12. Hence the old idea, that successive corn 
 growing is a violation of the natural laws of 
 vegetation or of fertility in the soil, already une- 
 quivocally disowned by both physiologist and 
 chemist, as the spurious offspring of false induc- 
 tion, must he abandoned by the enlightened 
 modern farmer also, leaving his mind free to form 
 a fair and impartial judgment on that existing 
 body of evidence, which not merely goes to de- 
 monstrate negatively the innocuous consequences, 
 physically, of unintermittent cereal culture, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 17 
 
 but positively its remunerative and practical 
 advantages. 
 
 13. What that evidence is, in its physical, 
 operative, and economic bearings, will be found 
 systematically compiled, for the first time, it is 
 believed, in English agricultural literature, in the 
 following little work. Long entrusted with land 
 management in both divisions of the island, two 
 maxims have ever guided the author’s not un- 
 successful efforts to promote the reciprocal inter- 
 ests of landlord and tenant, namely, that to stand 
 still in agricultural improvement, is practically to 
 retrograde ; but that, on the other hand, inno- 
 vation is not improvement, unless it be profitable. 
 Hence the leaven, at least, of a wholesome and 
 progressive experience is mixed up with the follow- 
 ing chapters, be their demerits in other respects 
 what they may. 
 
CHAPTER II.— TULL’S AGRICULTURAL BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Tull received a University Education, and was bred to the Bar. — Obliged 
 to abandon his Profession from constitutional ill health. — In 
 1701 began to Farm an Inheritance in Oxfordshire. — There be- 
 came the Inventor of the first English Drill Sowing Machine, 
 and of Drill Husbandry. — His own Account of the circumstances 
 which led to these inventions. — Their Success. — Obliged to Travel 
 abroad for his health. — Observed the Husbandries of Continental 
 Countries. — Returned Home, and began to Farm another Inheri- 
 tance in Berkshire. — Studied the Natural Sciences, and resolved 
 on Adopting a Reformed Method of Husbandry. 
 
 The little that is known of J ethro Tull’s personal 
 history, is almost exclusively connected with his 
 agricultural celebrity. He inherited two small 
 estates, one in the county of Oxford, the 
 other in the hilly district of Berks, on the 
 confines of Wiltshire. Receiving a University 
 Education, he was called to the Bar, which, 
 however, he relinquished in consequence of chronic 
 ill health, ultimately of the most acute kind. 
 Thus precluded from his chosen profession, in a 
 happy hour for Agriculture, he betook himself, 
 about the year 1701, to the farming of his Oxon 
 estate, and there invented the first English Drill 
 Sowing Machine, and was the first to practise that 
 method of Drilling, which has become so com- 
 pletely an integral part of British Husbandry. 
 
TILLAGE ANL> MANURING. 
 
 10 
 
 The many authors who have treated of the 
 progressive improvement of steam mechanism 
 from its first very imperfect state, all follow each 
 other in relating, with devout particularity, 
 Watt’s own modest account of the inductions 
 which resulted in his first great invention — the 
 separate condensing apparatus. 
 
 Now, signal in its benefits to manufactures and 
 commerce as was this beautiful contrivance, who 
 shall assert that agriculture, and through agricul- 
 ture, mankind, were less beholden to Tull for that 
 invention of his, in the mechanism and practice of 
 drill sowing, which, unquestionably, has since be- 
 come the basis of every improvement in modern 
 British husbandry ? It is fitting, therefore, that 
 the origin of this great English cultural device 
 should form an early topic of the following trea- 
 tise, and should be related in Tull’s own words : 
 
 “ I should not,” he says, “ trouble the reader 
 with an account how accidentally it (the drill) was 
 discovered, were it not to shew, that the know- 
 ledge of a thing which seems despicable or im- 
 pertinent, may unexpectedly become useful at one 
 time or other. 
 
 “ When I was young, my diversion was music : 
 
 I had also the curiosity to acquaint myself 
 c 
 
20 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 thoroughly with the fabric of every part of my 
 organ ; but as little thinking that ever I should 
 take from thence the first rudiments of a drill, as 
 that I should ever have occasion of such a 
 machine or practise agriculture ; for it was acci- 
 dent, not choice, that made me a farmer, or rather 
 many accidents which could not then possibly be 
 foreseen. 
 
 “ It was my chance afterwards to have a large 
 farm in hand, which I could not well dispose of ; 
 and it being about the time when plough servants 
 first began to exalt their dominion over their 
 masters, so that a gentleman farmer was allowed 
 to make but little profit of his arable lands ; and 
 almost all mine being of that sort, I resolved to 
 plant my whole farm with St. Foin ; but the seed 
 of it being scarce, and dear, and very little of it 
 good, I found it would be very difficult to procure 
 a sufficient quantity to sow, at seven bushels to 
 each acre, which were usually sown. • Whereupon 
 I began to examine whether so great a quantity 
 of seed was absolutely necessary ; and whether 
 the greatest part of the seed sown, did not com- 
 monly miscarry, either by its badness, or from 
 being buried too deep, or else lying on the ground 
 uncovered : and I observed in several fields of St, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANUIUNG. 21 
 
 Foin, sown with that proportion of seed, that in 
 those parts of them which produced the best 
 crop, there were (as I counted them when the 
 crop was taken off) but about one plant for each 
 square foot of surface ; and yet the number of 
 seeds in seven bushels sown on each acre, being 
 calculated, amounted to one hundred and forty to 
 each square foot; and, what was yet more observ- 
 able, in other parts of the same fields, where a 
 much less number of seeds had miscarried, the 
 crop was less. Then after I had learned per- 
 fectly how to distinguish good seeds from bad, 
 and had, by many trials, found that scarce any, 
 even of the best, would succeed, unless covered 
 at a certain exact depth (especially in my strong 
 land) and had also found the reason of this nicety, 
 T employed people to make channels, and sow a 
 very small proportion therein, and cover it 
 exactly. 
 
 “ This way succeeded to my desire, and was in 
 seed and labour but a fourth part of the expense 
 of the common way, and yet the ground of seed 
 was better planted. 
 
 “ Ten acres being so well done, I did not doubt 
 but a thousand might have been as well done in 
 the same manner ; but the next year as soon as I 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 22 
 
 began to plant I discovered that these people had 
 conspired to disappoint me for the future, and 
 never to plant a row tolerably well again : per- 
 haps jealous, that if a great quantity of land 
 should be taken from the plough, it might prove 
 a diminution of their power : I was forced to 
 dismiss my labourers, resolving to quit my scheme, 
 unless I could contrive an engine to plant St. F oin 
 more faithfully than such hands would do. 
 
 To that purpose I examined and compared all 
 the mechanical ideas that ever had entered my 
 imagination, and at last pitched upon a groove, 
 tongue, and spring, in the sound-board of the 
 organ. With these a little altered, and. some 
 parts of two other instruments as foreign to the 
 field as the organ is, added to them, I composed 
 my machine. It was named a drill ; because when 
 farmers used to sow their beans and peas into 
 channels or furrows by hand, they called that 
 action drilling. 
 
 “ It planted that farm much better than hands 
 could have done, and many hundred acres besides ; 
 and thirty years’ experience shews, that St. Foin, 
 thus planted, brings better crops, and lasteth 
 longer than sown St. F oin. 
 
 “ This drill has also been used almost as long in 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 23 
 
 planting most sorts of corn for hand-hoeing ; and 
 these last nine years for horse-hoeing.’' 
 
 Compelled, ten years after, to resort to the 
 continent for his health, Tull let his farm, and 
 proved the goodness of his previous management 
 by obtaining a considerable and permanent advance 
 of rent. 
 
 Abroad, he resided for several years both in 
 Italy and in one of the Mediterranean Provinces 
 of the south of France (Languedoc), and from his 
 observation of the husbandries of these countries, 
 conceived three great propositions in Agriculture, 
 which will afterwards he more particularly dwelt 
 on, namely : — 
 
 1. That interculture amongst the growing crops 
 is a necessary operation in well conducted 
 farming ; 
 
 2. That adequate tillage is not only an econo- 
 mical substitute for manure, but 
 
 3. That thorough tillage is also competent, 
 with or without the aid of manure, to secure 
 the profitable growth of any given species of 
 cultivated plant, year after year, in succession. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 24 
 
 The circumstances under which he arrived at 
 these conclusions afford a beautiful instance of 
 inductive reasoning, and are thus related by 
 him : — 
 
 “ The vines of low vineyards” (i. e. vineyards 
 where the plants are kept, by pruning, in the 
 condition of low shrubs), “ hoed by the plough, 
 have their heads just above the ground, standing- 
 all in a most regular order, and are constantly 
 ploughed in the proper season ; these have no 
 other assistance but by hoeing, because their 
 heads and roots are so near together, that dung 
 would spoil the taste of the wine they produce, in 
 hot countries. 
 
 “ From these I took my vineyard scheme, 
 observing that indifferent land produces an annual 
 crop of grapes and wood without dung ; and 
 though there is annually carried off from an acre 
 of vineyard as much in substance as is carried off 
 in the crop of an acre of corn produced on land of 
 equal goodness, yet the vineyard soil is never 
 impoverished unless the hoeing culture be denied 
 it : but a few annual crops of wheat, without 
 dung, in the common management will impoverish 
 and emaciate the soil. 
 
 “ I cannot find either in theory or practice any 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 35 
 
 other good reason for this difference, except that 
 the vineyard-soil is more pulverised by hoeing. 
 
 “ The soil of the vineyard never can have a 
 true summer fallow, though it has much summer 
 hoeing, for the vines live in it and all over it all 
 the year ; neither can that soil have benefit from 
 dung, because although by increasing the pulver- 
 isation it increases the crop, yet it spoils the taste 
 of the wine. The exhaustion of that soil is, 
 therefore, supplied by no artificial help but hoeing ; 
 and by all the experience I have had of it, the 
 osame cause will have the same effect upon a soil 
 for the production of corn.” 
 
 Elsewhere he relates, that these vineyards have 
 occupied the same ground unchanged for many 
 centuries, maintaining, without manure, an undi- 
 minished fertility. 
 
 Pondering on these things, he returned home ; 
 and impressed also with the well-founded convic- 
 tion, that the then prevailing ancient husbandry 
 of England w r as extremely defective in operative 
 details, he resumed his agricultural pursuits, but 
 now on his Berkshire property, and forthwith 
 began to give effect to his ideas of what could 
 be done in the reformation of practical routine 
 
TOE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 a 6 
 
 culture.* But, in order to acquire the light of 
 science for his guidance in the new paths he was 
 about to enter, he first made himself master of 
 the many important discoveries in Physics and 
 Physiology which Bacon, Newton, Ray, Hales, 
 Grew, Bradley, Evelyn, and others, had so largely 
 given to the world in that or the preceding century, 
 — acquisitions which, joined with his previous 
 actual experience in farming, and the enlargement 
 of his views promoted by travel, eminently quali- 
 fied him every way for the successful execution of 
 such a design. * 
 
 In an admirable Review of Tull's Husbandry, in the 
 “ Farmers' Magazine , ” of 1855, (Yol. viii, third series, 
 p. 340,) and generally attributed to the pen of Mr. J. A. 
 Clarke, of Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, it is said that Tull 
 was abroad twice, and that the Berkshire farm (named 
 “ Prosperous”) was a hired one. Regarding these points, 
 we will only observe, that various circumstances mentioned 
 in Tull’s Book, shew, that, at least eventually, the farm 
 became his own property, (see after, chapter x,) and whether 
 he travelled twice or only once, is perhaps immaterial. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 CHAPTER Hi.— THE OLD TILLAGE HUSBANDRY OF 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 The Husbandry of Tull’s time was part Pastoral and part Tillage. — 
 The Management of the Tillage portion of the Farm of that day 
 described. — Was exclusively Cereal in its nature. — The Bare 
 Fallow.- — The Defects of the System. — These, however, in opera- 
 tive details, and not in principle. — The Old Economy of Manuxing 
 very inept. — Tull's belief that the benefits of the Bare Fallow 
 were due chiefly to the thorough Tillage, and not to the impei-fect 
 Dunging it received. — His conception of applying the thorough 
 Tillage of Vineyard Husbandry to the growing Field Crops. 
 — The then recent Introduction of Turnips and Clover into 
 English Farming adverted to. — Tull actually applies the Vine- 
 yard Interculture to Turnips. — He thereby became the Inventor 
 of the existing form of Root Tillage, and of the first English 
 Horse Hoe. 
 
 It has been seen in the preceding chapter, that 
 the change which Tull sought to accomplish in 
 Agriculture was not the subversion of the main 
 principles of the then existing husbandry of Eng- 
 land, but only the reformation of its methods ; 
 and there will, therefore, be found both aptness and 
 advantage in next recounting what the leading 
 characteristics of that ancient husbandry were. 
 
 First then, the old agriculture of England was 
 at that time — as it ever had been and still is — 
 mainly pastoral. Since the beginning of the 18 th 
 
28 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 century (the period now in question), a consider- 
 able acreage has been subtracted from grazing 
 land and added to tillage ; but even now, permanent 
 pastures stand in nearly equal proportions the 
 entire kingdom over. — Caird’s English Agriculture , 
 pp. 520, 521, 522. 
 
 Varying, however, in different localities, from a 
 maximum of three-fourths to a minimum of one- 
 half, the then English farm had a constant portion 
 under grass, into which predominant grazing 
 division the plough never entered ; while, again, 
 the minor tillage portion, of which only we shall 
 hereafter speak, was as entirely devoted to corn 
 growing, exclusive (an occasional pulse crop ex- 
 cepted) of everything else, and consisting of a 
 routine of wheat or rye, barley, oats, or pease, 
 arranged in successional order among themselves, 
 somewhat differently in different soils, but never 
 alternated with any other kind of plant. 
 
 The bad farmers of the day made the cycle 
 larger by repeating one or other of its members 
 more than once ; but what has been stated was 
 the usual routine of good tillage farming. 
 
 In this system, however, two phenomena 
 were, in all districts alike, constant and remark- 
 able ; for, first, the acreable produce of each 
 
TILLAGE AND MANUH1NG. 
 
 29 
 
 succeeding crop of the cycle was seen to decrease 
 in a compound ratio,— step by step, downward ; 
 while, secondly, the growth of weeds, year by 
 year, became more excessive ; and, therefore, our 
 forefathers were fain to adopt that remedial 
 expedient originally introduced by the Romans, 
 namely, the still common bare fallow, w'hose 
 offices were not only to relieve the land of the ac- 
 cumulated weed of the previous cycle, but to give 
 to the land the fertilisation and cleansing of a 
 periodical summer tillage, as well as to allow that 
 inherent elaboration of nutritive matters, which is 
 a property of all good soils, to accumulate for a 
 year without abstraction by any crop. Through 
 this threefold means of amelioration the soil be- 
 came periodically cleansed and recruited; and 
 while the practice was inadequate to prevent 
 a lessening yield in the succeeding crops of every 
 cycle, — each cycle, as an aggregate, nevertheless, 
 from century to century, maintained not only an 
 undiminished, but, concurrently with the improving 
 agricultural industry of the nation, an actually 
 increasing mean in corn productiveness through- 
 out the country. 
 
 In addition to what has already been stated in 
 11 11 of the Introductory Chapter, the following 
 Table will also be found illustrative of this subject. 
 
30 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 TABLE I . 
 
 SHEWING THE ESTIMATED ACREABLE CORN PRODUCE OF 
 ENGLAND AT VARIOUS PERIODS. 
 
 
 .Wheat. 
 
 Bush. 
 
 Barley. 
 
 Bush. 
 
 Oats 
 
 Bush. 
 
 L. In the 13tli century* 
 
 12 
 
 24 ? 
 
 24 ? 
 
 2. Latter part of the 16th* 
 
 16 to20 
 
 36 
 
 32to40 
 
 3. Third quarter of the 18th, at which 
 
 
 
 
 period the old corn husbandry still 
 
 
 
 
 prevailed! 
 
 23to24 
 
 32 
 
 36 
 
 4. Middle of the 19th+ 
 
 26# 
 
 38 
 
 44 
 
 Next, of Ancient Manuring ; and of old, the 
 practice stood thus : — Of stall-feeding, there was 
 next to none, and very little winter housing of 
 live stock ; and hence the product of dung was 
 comparatively insignificant both in quantity and 
 quality. Very usually a stream of surface water 
 was directed through the farm yard, to float its 
 best riches to some favoured meadow ; and as the 
 permanent grass closes always came in for a 
 
 * Sir John Cullum's “ History of Hawksted and also 
 the Description of Britain in Elizabeth’s reign, prefixed to 
 “ Hollingshed’s Chronicle,” as quoted in Lankaster’s “Food 
 of Man,” Lib. En. Kno., p. 43 ; and Hoskyn’s Introductory 
 Essay in Morton’s Cyclopcedia of Agriculture. 
 
 t Young’s Ten Months’ Tour through the North of 
 England, 1770. 
 
 \ Caird’s English Agriculture, pp. 474 and 522. 
 
TILLAGE AN1) MANURING. 
 
 31 
 
 large share of the solid dung to ensure a good 
 shear of hay, what remained to be worked up 
 with each year’s bare fallow of the tillage land, 
 was very inconsiderable : hut to supplement this, 
 in some degree, it was very customary to spread 
 out dry straw in the lanes, to be trodden under 
 foot into a sort of compost, and then carted to 
 the ploughed fields. 
 
 Under these circumstances, is it wonderful that 
 a thinker of Tull’s capacity should have 
 attached extremely little value to so feeble a 
 process of stercoration to the corn crops, as has 
 been here related ? or that in reasoning on the 
 renovated fertility effected by the bare fallow, he 
 should have arrived at the conclusion, that not 
 to the manuring, but, mainly, to the working of 
 the land and the abatement of weeds, joined with 
 a year's rest from cropping, was the renewed 
 increase of the soil due : or need we wonder 
 that he should have convinced himself, that, if by 
 any means he could introduce into the midst of 
 the growing corn, an interculture analogous to 
 that of the vineyards which, besides communica- 
 ting to the soil the specific benefits belonging to 
 thorough tillage, should also suppress the pre- 
 vailing most noxious foulness of the land, 
 
32 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 then, as in the vineyard, an unfluctuating pro- 
 ductiveness would ensue, without the aid of 
 manurial applications ; nay, without even a 
 periodical fallow rest. To illustrate this most 
 important point of our statement, with the 
 author’s own words, we quote, as hitherto we 
 have been doing, from his agricultural work, 
 entitled “ Horse-hoeing Husbandry,’’* as follows : — 
 “ I own,” he says, “ I took the first hints of my 
 horse-hoeing culture from the ploughed vineyards 
 near Frontignan and Setts, in Languedoc; and 
 after my return to England, having land come to 
 my hands, I improved those hints by observing, 
 that the same sort of vineyard tillage bestowed 
 on potatoes and turnips, had the same effect on 
 them as it had on these vines “ and then,” 
 he continues (referring to an accidental field 
 observation, which he had previously related), 
 “ the mentioned row of barley, adjoining to the 
 horse-hoed turnips, confirmed me in the princi- 
 ples, which, by arguing from effects to their 
 causes, I had formed to myself ; and my practice, 
 ever since, has been a further confirmation to me 
 of the truth of the same principles.” 
 
 * See Chaster iv. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 33 
 
 Meanwhile, although Tull himself never sought 
 to revolutionize, but only to improve the old 
 husbandry of England, an innovation which has 
 since grown into vast magnitude had begun to 
 gain ground ; to wit, the alternation of turnip 
 and clover crops with corn, on tillage farms. At 
 first, Tull fell into the general current flowing in 
 that new direction ; and, inasmuch as he did so, 
 to that fact is attributable the greatest event in 
 operative husbandry which has hitherto happened 
 in these islands. 
 
 Let us endeavour to explain this succinctly. 
 In his Oxfordshire farming, Tull, as we have 
 already seen, invented, and made use of a 
 drill-machine to sow his various crops ; and 
 thus he became the acknowledged father of 
 Drill Husbandry. By this expedient he attained 
 three objects : first, the more equable deposition 
 of the grains ; Sndly, a great saving of seed, — (and 
 thus he teas the father also of Thin Sowing ;) 
 3rdly, the promotion of the process of weeding, 
 both by the hand and hand-hoe. And of this 
 branch of his practice, the corn-drilling of the 
 present day, as contradistinguished from that 
 sort practised in the fallow' crops, is the living- 
 representative. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 3J 
 
 But that improvement of Tull's, which has 
 become the great leading feature in modern farm- 
 ing, consisted in this : that in cultivating his 
 fallow crops, after his return from abroad, he not 
 only persisted in his prior practice of drilling, but 
 so widened the spaces between the rows as to 
 admit the passing between them of an implement 
 contrived by himself, to be drawn by horses, — in 
 order to impart to the growing plants the same intercul- 
 ture he had seen so beneficially used amongst the vines of 
 southern France. This process he termed horse- 
 hoeing ; and in like manner as he was the author 
 of corn-drilling and of thin sowing, so likewise teas 
 he the inventor of all that is excellent in Fallow- 
 crop Tillage. 
 
CHAPTER IV.— OF TULL'S BOOK, ANI) OF HIS FARM. 
 
 After perfecting Drilled Turnip Culture on his own Farm; Tull 
 abandoned it for pure Cereal Husbandry. — His practical success 
 became much noticed. — Urged by leading Agriculturists, he 
 published his Principles in his Book, entitled “Horse-Hoeing 
 Husbandry." — His Farm described. — Its Extent about 200 
 Acres. — Its Quality a thin Chalk Soil. 
 
 But although, from what has been related in the 
 last chapter, Tull was the undisputed father of 
 that system of interculture in roots which has 
 obtained for these and other drilled cattle provender 
 the somewhat anomalous term of fallow crops ; 
 and although lie himself successfully organized 
 drilled and horse-hoed turnip growing on his own 
 farm, he eventually abandoned that practice, as 
 well as the growth of tilled clover, and fell back 
 on the old system of pure corn-husbandry ; not 
 scrupling, however, to make havoc of its antiquated 
 tillage expedients, and boldly to substitute a more 
 efficient operative routine in their place. 
 
 In this very arduous and difficult course — the 
 more so from the insolent and intractable habits 
 of the agricultural labourers of that day — he most 
 perseveringly continued for many years, without 
 entertaining any desire to proselytize others 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 36 
 
 to his system. At last, urged by leading men 
 of the day connected with the agricultural interests 
 of all the three kingdoms (who, 'visiting his farm 
 in great numbers, had seen with conviction the 
 extraordinary practical talent, as well as success, 
 displayed in his new method of farming), Tull 
 wrote, and published by subscription, an elaborate 
 exposition of his system, under the following title : 
 “ The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry, or a Treatise on 
 the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation, wherein 
 is taught a Method of introducing a sort of Vine- 
 yard Culture into the Com Fields, in order to 
 increase their product and diminish the common 
 expense. By Jethro Tull, of Shalbome, in the 
 county of Berks. 1733.”* 
 
 Alas ! the whole, as he states in the preface, 
 “ was written in pains of the stone and other 
 diseases as incurable and almost as cruel.” 
 
 “ Connection,” he adds, “ cannot be expected 
 in a book composed of Notes written at different 
 times, some in one year, some in others, as some- 
 thing new flowed from a different practice from 
 what was common. Besides, as I was by sickness 
 
 * Cobbett’s Edition of 1829 is the best, and indeed only 
 one now in print. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 37 
 
 incapable of assisting when it was transcribed for 
 the press, when many notes were to be inserted, 
 my scribe not understanding their marks, mis- 
 placed many of them, some in the text, some in 
 the margin, some in the wrong Chapters, many 
 he left out, and more being mislaid which he did 
 not find ; among which last were the several 
 weighings of my drilled crops and the neighbour- 
 ing sown crops. 
 
 “ Several things caused the want of method. 
 My scribe was so little skilled in country affairs as 
 sometimes to set the cart before the horse, as he 
 does, where he places the hoeing of turnips before 
 the planting of them : but I presume this mistake 
 will not be followed by any practiser, and then 
 nobody will be injured by it, or by any such like 
 Iiysteron-Proteron to be found in the Chapter of 
 .Wheat, or elsewhere in the book.” 
 
 Under these touching circumstances, it is not 
 surprising that the work, though a rich mine of 
 both theoretical and practical instruction, should 
 be so unmethodical as really to be unfitted for 
 general perusal ; and, consequently, an endeavour 
 shall, in the sequel, be made, by copious quotation 
 properly arranged, to epitomise what in it relates 
 to that successive mode of corn culture which the 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 38 
 
 author himself practised ; and in doing so, we 
 shall he enabled to furnish a guide to those who 
 may choose to test, by actual experiment, the pre- 
 tensions of Tullian farming to a place in the corn- 
 husbandry of England. In the narrative also 
 there shall, from time to time, be introduced some 
 of the leading principles of modern Agricultural 
 Physiology and Chemistry, in order to shew the 
 surprising harmony of Tull’s practice, with subse- 
 quent discovery in the laws of vegetative nature. 
 
 To the practical reader it is important also that 
 the agricultural circumstances of the stage on 
 which the “ New Husbandry” (as Tull’s system 
 came to be called) was invented and enacted 
 should be known ; and thus he himself describes 
 his farm : — 
 
 “I am sorry that this farm, whereon I have 
 only practised liorse-hoeing, — being situate upon 
 a hill that consists of chalk on one side, and 
 heath-ground on the other,— has been usually 
 noted for the poorest and shallowest soil in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 “ It is both known and seen to be one of the 
 highest farms in all that part of the county of 
 Berks where it lies ; it may be seen at ten or 
 twelve miles’ distance, and was a more remarkable 
 
TILLAGE AN1) MANURING. 
 
 39 
 
 eminence before the trees were blown down bv 
 that memorable storm in the year 1703. 
 
 “ The bulk of the land belonging to this farm 
 is, on the south side, for near a mile in length, 
 always called Bitham Hills, and are, for the most 
 part, declining grounds, a sort of graciles Glivi, 
 being all on a chalk : in dry weather the whole 
 staple looks of a white colour, it is full of small 
 Hints, and smaller chalk-stones : below these hills 
 is a bottom, where are some grounds upon a 
 chalk also, but had not then been used in hoeing, 
 having lain with St. Foin thirteen or fourteen 
 years. On the west side all the land is called 
 East Hills, being on the east of the farms to 
 which they all formerly belonged. On the north- 
 west side is a high field, called Cook’s Hill, and is 
 the only field of my farm that is not upon a chalk ; 
 it is a very wet spewy soil of very little value, until 
 1 made it dry by ploughing across the descent of 
 the hill. 
 
 “ This soil is all too light and too shallow to 
 produce a tolerable crop of beans.”* 
 
 * “ It was situated,” says Cobbett, speaking of Tull’s farm, 
 “at a place called Prosperous (probably so called from bis 
 great success), iu a tract of very indifferent land lying on the 
 north side of the Hampshire bills, near the borders of 
 
40 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Its extent was probably about 200 acres. Ulti- 
 mately lie kept no store animals, not even sheep ; 
 and besides a team of horses, occupied chiefly in 
 the business of a tile kiln, he used oxen only to 
 work his farm, or rather castrated bulls, these 
 being, he says, “ hardier than oxen, though of 
 lesser size.” 
 
 Wiltshire, but being itself in the county of Berks. It is, I 
 believe, in the parish of Inkpen. I visited it in the company 
 of Mr. Budd of Newbury, who had visited it long before with 
 Arthur Young, who, like me, visited it in the ' character of a 
 pilgrim, and in honour of the memory of the real founder of 
 every recent improvement that has been made in the agri- 
 culture of England.” — Cobbett's Treatise on Cobbett's Corn, as 
 quoted in Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Agriculture, p. 1208. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 11 
 
 CHAPTER V.— OF MANURES. 
 
 The Principles ot Modern Scienee respecting them premised. — Extra 
 neous Manures. — The Grosser kinds, Marling, Liming, &c. — The 
 more concentrated kinds, Salt, Nitrates, Guano, <fcc. — Neither of 
 these classes of Fertilizers used by Tull. — Dung Manur- 
 ing. — This kind only practised by him, — Its Physical and 
 Chemical Action on the Soil. — Tillage an important. Substantive 
 Means of obtaining “ Manurial ” Matter from the Atmosphere. — 
 Tillage alone competent to promote profitable Fertility in Suc- 
 cessive Corn Growing. — Tull's Practice based on that Principle. 
 — But he laid down no General Rule against the Use of Manures 
 in Aid of Tillage. Warned the Manuring Fanner, however, that 
 Great Produce and Great Profit were not necessarily synonymous. 
 — His maxims respecting Manures quoted in his own words. — 
 Recommends Small and Frequent Applications rather than Heavy 
 Single Manurings Professor Way quoted. 
 
 Based as Tull’s precepts and practice were upon 
 his own notions of the relative values of tillage 
 and manuring, as fertilising agents, it will, in 
 order to test and demonstrate the validity of these, 
 be necessary in this chapter to go somewhat into 
 the rationale of manures as unfolded by modern 
 science ; and in doing so we would premise, trite 
 though it be, the following proposition : that the 
 constituents of all plants are derived from the soil, 
 on the one hand, by means of the roots, and from 
 the atmosphere, on the other, through the agency 
 of the leaves and other green surfaces. 
 
 We shall afterwards have occasion to point out, 
 
TJJI'. PRIM Cl PLUS OP 
 
 1-2 
 
 that a very important part of the nutriment yielded 
 by the soil to plants is, in fact, an atmospheric 
 deposit, more or less promoted by tillage. In the 
 meantime, however, we shall exclusively consi- 
 der what may be called the non-atmospheric con- 
 stituents of vegetative growth insumed by the roots ; 
 these being of a twofold kind ; first, inorganic 
 substances derived from the purely mineral matters 
 of the ground, by means of natural chemical 
 decomposition ; and, secondly, substances, elimi- 
 nated by the putrefactive decay of vegetable 
 or animal (i. e. organic) remains, forming 
 usually a minor, but still most important part of 
 the general constituency of soils. 
 
 Normally, however, the organic admixture is 
 not indispensable to vegetation ; for experiment 
 has conclusively proved, that a soil from whence 
 all traces of vegetable or animal remains have 
 been removed, will, if exposed to purely atmo- 
 spheric agency only, support vigorous vegetation. 
 
 Now, although unfruitfulness in soils may be 
 caused by several circumstances, the most common 
 one is, not an absolute deficiency of vegetative 
 food, but inability to generate it, from year to 
 year, in such abundance as is necessary 
 to evolve that abnormal exuberance of growth 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 43 
 
 in plants which alone will repay the labour 
 of the husbandman. Further, we know that there 
 are numberless instances, where, independently of 
 ordinary dunging, the wanting or deficient nutri- 
 ments may adventitiously and profitably be sup- 
 plied, as is done in a gross way by marling, &c., 
 or more compendiously by the use of concen- 
 trated appliances, such as salt, gypsum, guano, 
 ammoniates, nitrates, &c. 
 
 But in Jethro Tull’s practice, none of these 
 means of promoting vegetative increase, by 
 extraneous fertilisers applied to the soil, ob- 
 tained : the question which he raised as to the 
 use of, or abstinence from, artificial manuring, 
 having regard only to stercoraceous matters of the 
 ordinary kind, viz. : the products of the dung 
 court, or night-soil procured from the neighbour- 
 ing town. 
 
 Let us next, then, in order the better to discover 
 Tull’s conceptions on the subject of manures, 
 examine the theory of stercoraceous manuring ; 
 and at all hands it is conceded to be, in principle, 
 a mere imitation of that procedure of nature 
 whereby (altogether independently of human 
 agency) the remains of plants and animals are 
 universally commingled with the staple ; the office 
 
44 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 performed by the matters, artificially or naturally 
 deposited, being as follows : — 
 
 1. All animal tissues are derived (directly by 
 herbivors, and indirectly by carnivors through the 
 flesh of their herbivorous victims) from plants ; 
 and as all plants, at least the terrestrial tribes, 
 obtain the ingredients of their various parts both 
 from the soil and from the atmosphere, so 
 therefore, when organic exuvise (whether they be 
 corporeal, as the dead parts of vegetables or 
 animals, or excremental, as the faeces and urine 
 of the latter) resolve themselves, by putrescent 
 decomposition, into their more elemental con- 
 ditions, they are thereby simply restoring to the 
 earth or air those elements of vegetative growth 
 of which plants and (through plants) animals were 
 formed, to be again insumed and assimilated into 
 fresh organisms. 
 
 2. But to assign to this process of putrefactive 
 manuring, whether natural or artificial, its full 
 attributes in fertilization, it must be added that 
 between some of the substances produced by or- 
 ganic decay, on the one hand, and the indigenous in- 
 organic matters of the soil itself, on the other, a cer- 
 tain chemical reaction ensues (the “pulverisation” 
 
TILLAGE AND MANUBING. 
 
 45 
 
 of Tull, and especially promoted by concomitant 
 thorough tillage of that kind which he invented), 
 by virtue of which the inorganic pabulum is more 
 abundantly eliminated ; and thus, then, ster- 
 coraceous manuring is both contributivehj and 
 stimulatively beneficial. 
 
 Now, although the then state of natural know- 
 ledge did not enable Jethro Tull to trace these 
 principles nearly so far as has since been done, 
 he allowed to dung manuring precisely the same 
 practical effects as have just been shortly stated. 
 On the one hand, he held that it yielded, although 
 in small proportion, “ earths” or “ salts thus 
 assigning to it a eontributive office : on the other 
 hand, its stimulative property he thus defines : 
 “ All sorts of dung and compost contain some 
 matter which, when mixed with the soil, ferments 
 therein ; and by such ferment, dissolves, crumbles, 
 and divides the earth very much and although 
 these terms, literally interpreted, import physical 
 functions, yet it is very certain, from the whole 
 context of his book, that he himself conceived 
 the phenomena to which they are applied to be 
 something more than that, namely, a chemical 
 reaction, although science had, in that day, fur- 
 nished him with no adequate phraseology by which 
 to express his conceptions. 
 
46 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 At this stage of our statement, it would be in- 
 expedient to go into Tull’s still greater induction, 
 namely, that by means of thorough tillage, such 
 as he invented and practised, the very atmosphere 
 itself can be made abundantly contributive to the 
 soil of what science has since determined to be 
 one of the most precious ingredients of fertilization 
 which naturally or artificially can be administered 
 to plants. Enough at present to say, that a chief 
 element of Tull’s new method of husbandry was 
 based on a deep practical knowledge of all these 
 various relations and effects of manuring and 
 tillage ; and that in his vigorous and calculating 
 mind, this question underwent full consideration, 
 namely, whether much manure and relatively little 
 tillage, — or less manure and more tillage, — or no 
 manure at all except what could be drawn from 
 the air, but much tillage, was most remunerative 
 in pecuniary results. In his own matured practice, 
 this greatest of husbandmen adopted the last 
 alternative even in successive com growing ; and 
 thus, upon a farm of poor land demonstrated the 
 proposition which general considerations had sug- 
 gested to his mind, — that tillage was not only 
 theoretically, but practicalhj and profitably, an 
 entire substitute for dunging. Indeed , as has 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 47 
 
 already been seen, the old tillage husbandry of 
 England, which Tidl sought to reform, teas itself 
 all but entirely unmanurial. 
 
 Tull’s genius, however, was no less cautious 
 and deferential than enterprising and bold ; for, 
 again and again does he warn disciples that 
 diversified circumstances would demand at their 
 hands diversifications in their practical application 
 of this, as well as all the other great principles 
 which he taught. Accordingly, as an abstract 
 question, he left the use or disuse of manures en- 
 tirely open, with this most reasonable warning, that 
 large produce and large profit are not synonymous 
 terms ; that a less crop more economically obtained 
 may pay better than a heavier one procured at 
 greater expense ; and that usually it would be 
 found, on careful investigation, that the money 
 expended in the use of manures would have been 
 more advantageously spent in additional tillage. 
 
 Looked at in these lights, therefore, Tull’s 
 generalisation of Tillage, a substitute for Manure, 
 loses in abstract catholicity what it gains in 
 practical flexibility ; and although, probably, no 
 part of his new husbandry so much stirred up 
 the enmity and opposition of the prejudiced and 
 ignorant, as this supposed heretical doctrine of 
 
48 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 growing coni without dunging, there is none 
 really less calculated to deter the most practical 
 man of the present day from entering on Tullian 
 farming, if, in its other main departments, he 
 deems it eligible. 
 
 How consistent, for instance, with sound sense 
 and practical judgment are the following passages : 
 “ I have made,” says Tull, “ many trials of fine 
 dung on the rows, and, notwithstanding the benefit 
 of it, I have, for these several years past, left 
 it off, finding that a little more hoeing will supply 
 it at a much less expense, than that of so small a 
 quantity of manure, and of the hands necessary to 
 lay it on, and of the carriage.” 
 
 “ The almost only use of all manure, is the 
 same as of tillage, viz., the pulverisation it makes 
 by fermentation, as tillage doth hy attrition or 
 contusion ; and with these differences, that dung, 
 which is the most common manure, is apt to 
 increase weeds, as tillage (of which hoeing is 
 chief) destroys them, and manure is scanty in 
 most places, but tillage may be had everywhere. 
 Another difference is, the vast disproportion of 
 the price of manure and that of tillage. 
 
 “I have never affirmed that part of the necessary 
 degree of pulverisation made by tillage alone, with- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 49 
 
 out the salts of manure, will have the same effect 
 as the whole necessary degree of pulverisation made 
 hy tillage, and those salts together will ; neither 
 have I said that tillage alone can pulverise to that 
 degree in all sorts of land.” 
 
 Keeping no live stock but labouring cattle, the 
 accumulations of his dung court must needs have 
 been insignificant ; and the whole he preferred 
 applying to his permanent St. Foin lands and 
 pastures. 
 
 It may be added, that he strongly inculcated, 
 that where dung is used, it should be distributed 
 in repeated small quantities during the actual 
 growing of the crops (a process which his method 
 of tillage, we shall find, renders very practicable), 
 rather than in one large application antecedent 
 to sowing. 
 
 We conclude this chapter with the following 
 quotations from a paper of Professor Way, in 
 the xiii vol. of the Royal Agricultural Society’s 
 Journal, p. 141: “Now, although,” he says, “it 
 has been a constant axiom in the instructions of 
 chemists to farmers to return to the soil what 
 the crops remove (and every candid agricultural 
 chemist will own, that at the outset of his career 
 he has somewhat overrated the importance of 
 
50 
 
 THE PRINCIPLED OF 
 
 literally fulfilling this obligation), it is certaiu that 
 most soils of fair quality contain an amount of the 
 different mineral substances far greater than is 
 necessary for many successive crops of the most 
 impoverishing character.” So that here something 
 more than a mere suspicion is raised, that so far 
 as the inorganic vegetative nutriment of soils is 
 concerned, the expensive process of manuring 
 may be a very unprofitable act of supererogation. 
 
 “ The fact,” he adds, in another paragraph, p. 
 142, “is, that there is an almost unlimited supply 
 of the mineral requisites of plants in soils, but 
 that the great agricultural problem is to get at 
 them, — to render them available ; and here again it 
 seems reasonable to suppose that abundant culti- 
 vation, which lets in carbonic acid and ammonia, 
 to the soil, may, by that very act, be providing 
 the potash and phosphate of lime, which the 
 former (the carbonic acid), and the silica which 
 the latter (ammonia) are endowed with the power 
 of dissolving, and presenting to the roots of plants.” 
 
 Now, in subsequent chapters, we shall see 
 that, both theoretically and practically, abundant 
 cultivation is adequate to promote remunerative 
 fruitfulness in soils, without the addition of any 
 extraneous aid from solid manuring. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER VI.— § I. THEORY OF TILLAGE GENERALLY. 
 
 Definitions of Tillage. Its Physical Effects in Consolidating too 
 Porous Soils, and Opening Close Textures. — The Openness 
 of Soils Indispensable to the Condensation of Dew. — Experimen- 
 tal Proofs of this. — The Fertilizing Effects of the Atmosphere 
 on Soils. — An Instance cited from Evelyn. — Thompson’s Modern 
 Discovery of the Chemico-Absorbent Power of Soils, cited. — Way's 
 further Discoveries connected with the same Phenomenon. — 
 Liebig cited on the same subject.— Theory of its Operation Rela- 
 tively to Vegetation. — The Manuring Influences of the Air and 
 Rain Dwelt on. — These in Proportion to the Tilth of Soils. — 
 Way’s Recognition of the Soundness of Tull’s “ Convictions" 
 in Agricultural Philosophy. — Practical Deductions Arising out of 
 the Theory of Atmospheric “Manuring.” 
 
 § II. OF HORSE HOEING OR INTERCULTURAL TILLAGE. 
 
 True Tullian Horse-Hoeing Defined. — Its Thorough Eradication of 
 Weeds. — Its Signal Effects on the Growtli of Plants. — KeepsPlants 
 Moist in Dry Weather. — The Physical Causes of this Explained. 
 
 § I. OF TILLAGE GENERALLY. 
 
 1 . — Its Physical Effects on the Texture of the Soil. 
 
 “ Tillage,” says Tull, “ is the breaking and 
 dividing the ground by spade, plough, hoe, or 
 other instruments, which divide by a sort of 
 attrition or contusion, as dung does by fermenta- 
 tion." — “ Dung, without Tillage, can do very little ; 
 with some tillage does something; with much 
 tillage pulverizes the soil in less time than tillage 
 
 E 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 52 
 
 alone can do ; but the tillage alone, with more 
 time, can pulverize as well.” Again ; “ tillage (as 
 well as dung) is beneficial to all sorts of land. 
 Light land, being naturally hollow, has larger 
 pores, which are the cause of its lightness. This, 
 when it is by any means sufficiently divided, the 
 parts being brought nearer together, becomes for 
 a time, bulk for bulk, heavier; i. e. the same 
 quantity will be contained in less room, and so is 
 made to partake of the nature and benefits of 
 strong land, viz., to keep out too much heat and 
 cold, and the like. 
 
 “ But strong land being naturally less porous, 
 is made for a time lighter, as well as richer, by a 
 good division ; the separation of its parts makes 
 it more porous, and causes it to take up more 
 room than it does in its natural state, and then it 
 partakes of all the benefits of lighter land. 
 
 “The finer land is made by tillage, the 
 richer will it become, and the more plants it will 
 maintain. 
 
 “ It has been often observed that when part 
 of a ground has been better tilled than the 
 rest, and the whole ground constantly managed 
 alike, afterwards, for six or seven years suc- 
 cessively, this part that was but once better 
 
TILLAGE AMD MANURING. 
 
 53 
 
 tilled, always produced a better crop than the 
 rest, and the difference remained very visible 
 every harvest. 
 
 — The Effects of Tillage in the Condensation of Dew. 
 
 “ One part being once made finer, the dews did 
 more enrich it; for they penetrate within, and 
 beyond the superficies, whereto the roots are able 
 to enter. The fine parts of the earth are impreg- 
 nated throughout their whole substance, with 
 some of the riches carried in by the dews, and 
 there reposited ; until, by new tillage, the insides 
 of those fine parts become superficies ; and as 
 the corn drains them, they are again supplied as 
 before : but the rough large parts cannot have 
 that benefit ; the dews not penetrating to their 
 centres, they remain poorer. Minus habentibus 
 minus datur, et vice versa. 
 
 “ To demonstrate that dews moisten the land 
 when fine, dig a hole in the hard dry ground, in 
 the driest weather, as deep as the plough ought 
 to reach : beat the earth very fine, and fill the 
 hole therewith ; and, after a few nights’ dews, 
 you will find this fine earth become moist at the 
 
54 
 
 THIi PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 bottom, and the hard ground all round will con- 
 tinue dry. 
 
 “ Till a field in lands, make one land very fine 
 by frequent deep ploughing^, and let another be 
 rough, by insufficient tillage alternately ; then 
 plough the whole field cross-ways in the driest 
 weather, which has continued long, and you will 
 perceive, by the colour of the earth, that every 
 fine land will be turned up moist, but every rough 
 land will be dry as powder, from top to bottom.” 
 
 3 . — The Effects of Tillage in Promoting Atmospheric 
 Fertilization ; and the Chemico-Absorptive Power 
 of Soils. 
 
 Treating of the fertilising effects of the atmo- 
 sphere on soils, he thus expresses himself : — 
 
 “ I think nothing can be said more strongly to 
 confirm the truth of this, than what is related by 
 the authors quoted by Mr. Evelyn to this effect, 
 viz. : — 
 
 “ ‘ Take of the most barren earth you can find, 
 pulverise it well, and expose it abroad for a year, 
 incessantly agitated, (that is, stirred often), it will 
 become so fertile as to receive an exotic plant, 
 from the furthest Indies ; and to cause all vege- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 55 
 
 tables to prosper in the most exalted degree, and 
 to bear their fruit as kindly with us, as in their 
 natural climates.’ 
 
 “ This artificial dust, he says, will entertain 
 plants which refuse dung and other violent appli- 
 cations, and that it has a more nutritive power 
 than any artificial dungs or compost whatsoever : 
 and further, that by this toil of pulverising 4 it is 
 found that soil may be so strangely altered from 
 its former nature, as to render the harsh and 
 most uncivil clay obsequious to the husbandman, 
 and to bring forth roots and plants, which other- 
 wise require the lightest and hollowest mould.’ ” 
 
 To illustrate the great agricultural conception 
 of atmospheric 44 manuring” embodied in these 
 quotations, it will be necessary to go into some 
 explanations, — based more especially on that most 
 important chemical law of soils (usually termed 
 their 44 absorbent power”) which was discovered in 
 1845 by J. S. Thompson, Esq. (see Journal of the 
 Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. xi, p. 
 68), and was subsequently examined experimen- 
 tally and commented on by Mr. J. Thomas Way> 
 formerly consulting chemist to that body (ib. p. 
 313, and vol. xiii, p. 123). 
 
50 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Prior to the date of Mr. Thompson’s discovery, 
 the relation subsisting between the constituent 
 matters of the atmosphere, and those of the soil 
 on which it presses — stated very briefly — was 
 held to be as follows : First, it had been long- 
 ascertained that oxygen, carbonic acid, and am- 
 monia (all of them well determined constituents 
 of the atmosphere), either when admitted by the 
 opening effects of tillage into the interior of the 
 soil in a gaseous condition, or when carried into 
 it, as they constantly are, in solution with dew, 
 rain, or melted snow, exercise not only a con- 
 tributive fertilising function (analagous to that 
 already assigned to stercoraceous manuring), but 
 also an unequivocal decompositive action on the 
 inorganic elements of the soil, which, as was 
 thought, renders them soluble, and therefore 
 fitted, by reason of such solubility, to be insumed 
 as food by the roots of plants ; these being, as 
 was also conceived, unable physiologically to take 
 in nutriments except in a state of fluidity. Again, 
 secondly, it is important to have especially in 
 view the process of reduction to a fluid state here 
 spoken of, because in the then state of knowledge 
 it involved an obvious inconsistency arising from 
 this : that since w r e certainly know that a constant 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 57 
 
 descent of water is passing through all pervious 
 soils, it is inconceivable how the dissolved sub- 
 stances should not be washed away from the roots 
 growing in the upper stratum of mould, deep into 
 the under drains or subsoil, by every successive 
 rain fall. 
 
 To explain this seeming anomaly was one of 
 the first fruits of Mr. Thompson’s discovery, the 
 history of which we shall now state. Led by a 
 train of inductive reasoning (on which it is not 
 necessary here to enter) to suspect the existence 
 of a property in soils which had hitherto escaped 
 observation, he sought its detection by a series of 
 crucial experiments, which in a rough way may be 
 instanced thus : He took some vegetable mould, 
 and placing it in a filtering apparatus poured on 
 it a quantity of water, holding in solution a salt of 
 ammonia ; and when enough had passed through 
 by percolation into a receiving vessel beneath, the 
 filtered liquid was next tested for ammonia : none, 
 however, was found, and hence it became certain 
 that, in the descent of the solution, the ammonia- 
 cal base had been abstracted from the water, and 
 appropriated by the soil. 
 
 Now, seeing that long before this, a mechanical 
 power of absorption had been discovered in soils, 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 58 
 
 analagous perhaps to that which is exhibited in the 
 deodorizing effects of charcoal and other substances 
 of extreme porosity, it might have been thought 
 that the phenomenon exhibited by Mr. Thompson’s 
 experiment was due to some such physical pro- 
 perty. But repeated trials ultimately shewed that 
 the ammonia, in its disappearance from the liquid, 
 had combined, chemically, in an insoluble, and 
 hence unfiltrable, form, with some substance pre- 
 viously existing in the soil. What that substance 
 was, Mr. Thompson did not determine ; and even 
 yet its identity can hardly be said to be clearly 
 made out. 
 
 Communicated to Professor Way, this most 
 novel and striking addition to the chemical know- 
 ledge of soils was both confirmed and amplified 
 by an extensive range of experiments conducted 
 by that excellent chemist, and proving that besides 
 the ammoniacal compounds used by Mr. Thomp- 
 son, other substances belonging, to the con- 
 stituency of plant nutriment were subject to the 
 same law of arrest when passing in aqueous per- 
 colation through the soil. 
 
 But, at present, it will be more convenient to 
 limit the consideration of this phenomenon to that 
 acknowledged relation which experiment has also 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 50 
 
 shewn soils to bear with compounds of ammonia, 
 known to exist in a gaseous state in the atmo- 
 sphere, and due to emanations from the putrescence 
 and combustion of vegetable and animal substances 
 constantly going on on the earth’s surface. Of 
 course, if no withdrawal of these unwholesome 
 exhalations were provided for in nature, their 
 accumulation in the atmosphere would speedily 
 become malarious ; but being, like that other 
 constituent of the atmosphere — carbonic acid gas, 
 highly absorbable by water in all its meteorological 
 conditions of vapour, dew, rain, and snow, both 
 are thus unceasingly withdrawn from deleterious 
 accumulation in the air, and thrown to the earth 
 and imbibed by the soil, there to play each its 
 appropriate part in promoting fertility. 
 
 Now, keeping in view that, relatively speaking, 
 the proportion of ammoniacal constituency in the 
 air is extremely small ; keeping, also, still more 
 particularly in view, that ammonia is found, both 
 by scientific experiment as well as practical hus- 
 bandry, to be a very indispensable element in the 
 growth of all vegetables, and in a more especial 
 degree of the corn plants, it is impossible not to 
 recognise, in Mr. Thompson’s discovery of the 
 chemico -absorbent power of soils, a blessed pro- 
 
oo 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 vision of nature for husbanding this most precious 
 vegetative nutriment, by its conversion from solu- 
 bility to insolubility at the very instant of its 
 permeation through that upper stratum of the 
 earth’s surface in which the roots of plants most 
 prevail. “ The soil,” says Liebig, expatiating on 
 this subject in his work on Modern Agriculture, 
 p. 30, “ not only retains firmly all the food of 
 plants which is actually in it, but its power to 
 preserve all that may be useful to them, extends 
 much farther. If rain or other water, holding in 
 solution ammonia , potash , phosphoric and silicic 
 acids , be brought in contact with the soil, these 
 substances disappear almost immediately from the 
 solution ; the soil withdraws them from the water. 
 Only such substances are completely withdrawn by 
 the soil as are indispensable articles of food for 
 plants ; all others remain wholly or in part in 
 solution.” And in a preceding paragraph he had 
 said, “ the most continuous rain cannot remove 
 from the field, except mechanically, any of the 
 essential constituents of its fertility,” p. 30. 
 
 But how, it will be asked, shall the roots 
 (incapable, as they hitherto have been assumed to 
 be, of taking in food in any other condition than 
 that of liquidity) be able to receive this insoluble, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 01 
 
 but indispensable, new compound. The reply, 
 according to Liebig, is concise and simple, namely 
 this, — that the belief hitherto entertained of land 
 plants receiving their food dissolved in the capillary 
 currents of moisture which supply their roots 
 with water, “ has been a great mistake and 
 that now, in consequence of this discovery of the 
 chemico-absorptive property of soils, “ than which 
 there is not to be found in chemistry a more 
 wonderful phenomenon — one which more con- 
 founds human wisdom” (Modern Agriculture, p. 
 30), there is no conceivable method whereby ter- 
 restrial vegetation receives its radical sustenance 
 except by virtue of some process of vital chemistry 
 in the roots, in which the actual contact of their 
 surfaces with the insoluble particles of aliment, 
 minutely distributed in the soil, is indispensable. 
 “ There can be no doubt,” says Liebig, “ that, 
 from the action just described of soil on potash, 
 ammonia, and phosphoric acid, the majority of 
 our cultivated plants cannot receive, out of a 
 solution from the soil, their essential mineral 
 constituents.” — lb. p. 37. Again : “ It is more 
 than probable that it is assigned to the majority 
 of our cultivated plants to receive their nourish- 
 ment directly from those portions of soil which 
 
62 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 are in immediate contact with their rootlets.” — lb. 
 p. 38. “ From the action of soils already described, 
 it follows, that plants must themselves play some 
 peculiar part in the absorption of their food.” — lb. 
 p. 42. “ We frequently find in meadows, smooth 
 
 lime stones, with their surfaces covered with a 
 net work of small furrows. When these stones 
 are newly taken out of the ground, we find that 
 each furrow corresponds to a rootlet, which ap- 
 pears as if it had eaten into the stone.” — lb. p. 43. 
 
 Interpreted by the aid of these modern disco- 
 coveries, we now know why Tull’s tillage 
 expedients for promoting the ramification and 
 lengthening of the root fibres, as will be related in a 
 succeeding chapter, were so successful in practice; 
 because (as is appositely put in the way of 
 illustration by Liebig,) “from a field which 
 contains only half the quantity of food which is 
 present in another, a plant with a double propor- 
 tion of rootlet surface will receive as much 
 nourishment as a plant with only half the rootlet 
 suiface obtains from the second field.” — lb. p. 71. 
 
 Now it is, that, aided by these discoveries, we 
 can adequately appreciate Tull’s philosophical 
 accuracy in describing the available nutriment of 
 plants as existing in the “ superficies of the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 63 
 
 pores, cavities, or interstices of the divided parts 
 of the earth.” Now it is, that modern agricultural 
 science will humble itself before his prescience, 
 when remembering his words, “ that the mouths, 
 or lacteals, being situate and opening in the 
 convex superficies of roots, they take their 
 pabulum, being fine particles of earth, from 
 the superficies of the pores, or cavities, wherein 
 the roots are included.” Again; “fibrous roots can 
 take in no nourishment from any cavity unless they 
 come in contact ivith and press against all the 
 superficies of that cavity which includes them ; 
 for it dispenses the food to their lacteals by such 
 pressure only.” 
 
 Summing up his brilliant anticipations of the 
 more minute, but not more comprehensive, 
 discoveries and conclusions of subsequent agricul- 
 tural philosophy, “ it is certain,” says Tull, “ that 
 earth is not divested or robbed of this pabulum, 
 by any other means than by actual fire, or the 
 roots of plants. For when no vegetables are 
 suffered to grow in a soil, it will always grow 
 richer. Plough it, harrow it, as often as you 
 please ; expose it to the sun in horse-paths all the 
 summer, and to the frost of the winter ; let it be 
 covered bg water at the bottom of ponds or ditches ; 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 64 
 
 or if you grind dry earth to powder, the longer it 
 is kept exposed, or treated by these or any other 
 method possible (except actual burning by fire), 
 instead of losing, it will gain the more fertility.” 
 
 Nor were these observations and conclusions of 
 Tull’s mere barren acquisitions of knowledge; for, on 
 the contrary, they formed the very basis of his 
 practical doctrines on the primary importance of 
 that perfect comminution and disintegration of 
 the soil, which, says Professor Way, “ however 
 effected must render it more fertile, and place it 
 in a position to benefit by the manuring influences 
 of the atmosphere and rain, which are probably 
 much greater than ive at all conceive Written, as 
 this passage was, with express reference to Tull’s 
 doctrines and practice, what follows from the same 
 eminent agricultural chemist will not be thought 
 inaptly cited here. “ That he (Tull) had a convic- 
 tion of the existence of some such power in the 
 soil, [its absorptive property just described] and 
 of a manuring power in the air, there can be no 
 doubt ; and since we have seen that a ivorhed soil, 
 although it contains perhaps only half its weight 
 of clay, is yet more active as an absorbent than 
 pure clay itself, we have further reason to believe, 
 in the wonderfully beneficial effect, which Tull 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 65 
 
 attributed to abundant stirring and trituration of 
 the soil, by which continual exposure to atmo- 
 spheric influences, its absorbent power is greatly 
 augmented.” Roy. Agri. Jour. vol. xi. p. 377. 
 
 But let us now endeavour to unfold the prac- 
 tical deductions afforded by these disquisitions. 
 
 First, then, it may be truly said of the fertilising 
 constituents of the atmosphere, that though, 
 generally speaking, they may, by adequate tillage, 
 be procured in more or less abundance for any 
 soil, yet it is necessary that, for that purpose, 
 re-agents must exist in the staple, with which 
 they may combine. “ They are ready to enter 
 into circulation, like a maiden to dance, but a 
 partner is necessary” (Modem Agriculture, p. 28); 
 and hence the unavoidable necessity arises, that, 
 to soils destitute or deficient of these re-agents, 
 their presence there must be acquired by the 
 placing therein, artificially, of the absent consti- 
 tuents, or, in other words, by the judicious exercise 
 of special manuring and thus again we find the 
 axiom, “ Tillage a substitute for Manure,” must 
 be content to suffer greater or less relaxation in 
 practice. 
 
 Secondly. Experimental instances there cer- 
 
66 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 tainly are, where Tu Ilian husbandry has failed 
 of success. In such cases the reasonable pre- 
 sumption is, that they were cases of soils deficient 
 in the fixing re-agents ; and if so. then not to 
 use adventitious substitutes would be no less a 
 violation of Tullian principles, than wastefully to 
 apply them to soils where tillage alone would more 
 profitably be adequate. 
 
 Thirdly. We conclude this branch by remark- 
 ing that, step by step as we approach more nearly 
 the culminating point of Tull's teaching, we shall 
 find still increasing grounds for regarding them 
 as emanations from a “ deeply observant and 
 philosophical mind” (Professor Way, in the Royal 
 Agricultural Society’s Journal, vol. xiii, p. 139), 
 and as based on the soundest principles of natural 
 knowledge. 
 
 § II. OF HORSE- HOEING TILLAGE. 
 
 With regard more especially to inter- cultural 
 tillage ( i . e. both horse-hoeing and hand-hoeing), 
 Tull thus expresses himself : — 
 
 “ Ploeing is the breaking or dividing the soil 
 by tillage, whilst the corn or- other plants are 
 growing thereon. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 07 
 
 “ Hoeing may be divided into deep (which is 
 our horse-hoeing) and shallow, which is the Eng- 
 lish hand-hoeing ; and also the shallow horse- 
 hoeing, used in some places betwixt rows, where 
 the intervals are very narrow, as sixteen or 
 eighteen inches : this is hut an imitation of the 
 hand-hoe, or a succedaneum to it, and can neither 
 supply the use of dung, nor of fallow, and may be 
 properly called scratch-hoeing. 
 
 “ It (horse-hoeing) differs from common tillage 
 (which is always performed before the corn or 
 plants are sown or planted) in the times of per- 
 forming it ; it is much more beneficial, and it is 
 performed by different instruments. 
 
 “ Land that is, before sowing, tilled never so 
 much (though the more it is tilled the more it 
 will produce) will have some weeds, and they will 
 come in along with the crop for a share of the 
 benefit of the tillage, greater or less, according to 
 their number, and what species they are of.”* 
 
 “ But what is most to be regarded is, that as 
 soon as the ploughman has done his work of 
 
 * It will, in the sequel be seen, that one of the specific 
 advantages of horse-hoeing is the complete prevention of 
 treed. 
 
 F 
 
(38 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 ploughing and harrowing, the soil begins to undo 
 it, inclining towards, and endeavouring to regain 
 its natural specific gravity ; the broken parts by 
 little and little coalesce, unite, and lose some of 
 their surfaces, many of the pores or interstices 
 close up during the seed’s incubation, and hatch- 
 ing in the ground ; and, as the plants grow up, 
 they require an increase of food, proportionable 
 to their increasing bulk ; but on the contrary, 
 instead thereof, that internal superficies, which is 
 their artificial pasture, gradually decreases. 
 
 “ The earth is so unjust to plants, her own off- 
 spring, as to shut up her stores in proportion to 
 their wants ; that is, to give them less nourish- 
 ment when they have need of more : therefore, 
 man, for whose use they are chiefly designed, ought 
 to bring in his reasonable aid for their relief, and 
 force open her magazines with the hoe, which will 
 thence procure them, at all times, provisions in 
 abundance, and also free them from intruders ; I 
 mean, their spurious kindred, the weeds, that 
 robbed them of their too scanty allowance. 
 
 “ There is no doubt, but that one-third part of 
 nourishment raised by dung and tillage, given 
 to plants or corn at many proper seasons, and 
 apportioned to the different times of their exigen- 
 
Tir.f.AGK AND MANURING. 
 
 69 
 
 cies, will be of more benefit to a crop, than the 
 whole applied as it commonly is, only at the time 
 of sowing. 
 
 “ Another extraordinary benefit of the new 
 hoeing in husbandry is, that it keeps plants moist 
 in dry weather, and this upon a double account. 
 
 “ First, As they are better nourished by hoeing, 
 they require less moisture, as appears by Dr. 
 Woodward’s experiment, that those plants which 
 receive the greatest increase, having most terres- 
 trial nourishment, carry off the least water in 
 proportion to their augment ; so barley or oats, 
 being sown on a part of a ground very well divided 
 by dung and tillage, will come up and grow 
 vigorously without rain, when the same grains, 
 sown at the same time, on the other part, not 
 thus enriched, will scarce come up, or if they do, 
 will not thrive until rain comes. 
 
 “ Secondly, The hoe, I mean the horse-hoe (the 
 other goes not deep enough), procures moisture 
 to the roots from the dews, which fall most in dry 
 weather ; and those dews (by what Mr. Thomas 
 Henshaw has observed) seem to be the richest 
 present the atmosphere gives to the earth. 
 
 “ As fine-hoed ground is not so long soaked 
 by rain, so the dews never suffer it to become 
 
70 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 perfectly dry ; this appears by the plants, which 
 flourish and grow fat in this, whilst those on 
 the hard ground are starved, except such of them 
 which stand near enough to the hoed earth, foi 
 the roots to borrow moisture and nourishment 
 from it. 
 
 “ And I have been informed by some persons, 
 that they have often made the like observations ; 
 that, in the driest of weather, good hoeing pro- 
 cures moisture to roots, though the ignorant and 
 incurious fancy it lets in the drought, and 
 therefore are afraid to hoe their plants at such 
 times, when, unless they water them, they are 
 spoiled for want of it. 
 
 “These experiments will show how it is in our 
 own power to make solstitia become, in some 
 measure, humida, instead of wishing them so ;* 
 and also proves the Virgilian theory in this verse, 
 viz., Hie sterilem exiguns ne deserat humor arenam, 
 to be (as almost all the first Georgic is) directly 
 contrary to truth. 
 
 * Humida solstitia atque hyemes orate serenas 
 Agricolse : 
 
 The solstice moist, serene the winter sky, 
 
 For this, ye swains, intreat the powers on high. 
 
TILLAGE AN1) MANURING. 
 
 71 
 
 “ But to hoe with advantage against dry 
 weather, the ground must have been well tilled 
 or hoed before, that the hoe may go deep, else 
 the dews, that fall in the night, will be exhaled 
 back in the heat of the day.” 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 CHAPTER VII.— THEORY OF TILLAGE, CONTINUED. 
 
 Definitions Respecting the Cause of Different Degrees of Fer- 
 tility in Soils at Different Times. Of the Pores of Soils. Their 
 Specific Office. The “ Pasture” of Plants. The Meaning of 
 that Term Explained. The Nutritive Agents concerned in 
 Vegetation. The Soil. Water. Air. Tull’s Conceptions re- 
 specting Atmospheric “ Nitre.” The Functions of the Soil 
 Relatively to the Atmosphere. Want of Air one of the Causes of 
 Blight and Lodging in Com. Heat and Light. Want of Light 
 also a Cause of Blight and Lodging in overcrowded Crops. 
 
 Amongst the propositions more anxiously stated 
 and argued by Tull, was the following : That the 
 different productiveness at different times of one 
 and the same soil, depended on the greater or less 
 aggregate extent of the interstitial surfaces of its 
 pulverised fragments, when made fine by the 
 action of tillage or dung, and the loosening effects 
 of atmospheric agency. These interstitial surfaces 
 he called the pasture of plants, in the same sense 
 as the superficies of a grass field is the pasture of 
 cattle. He believed that on them only could 
 the nutritive substances which formed the plants" 
 food be given out by the soil, analogously to the 
 growth of herbage on the surface of a field ; and 
 he insisted, that without interstitial passages the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 73 
 
 fine root fibres could not penetrate in search of 
 the aliment there eliminated. 
 
 “ This pasture,” he writes, “ I shall endeavour 
 to describe. 
 
 “ It is the inner (or internal) superficies of the 
 earth ; or, which is the same thing, it is the super- 
 ficies of the pores, cavities, or interstices of the 
 divided parts of the earth, which are of two sorts, 
 viz. natural and artificial. 
 
 Into his definitions of the natural pasture it is 
 unnecessary to go; but, he says, the “ artificial 
 pasture may be increased in proportion to the 
 division of the parts of earth. 
 
 “ A cube of earth of one foot has but six feet of 
 superficies. Divide this cube into cubical inches, 
 and then its superficies will be increased twelve 
 times, viz. to seventy-two superficial feet. Divide 
 these again in like manner and proportion ; that 
 is, divide them into parts that bear the same 
 proportion to the inches, as the inches do to the 
 foot ; and then the same earth, which had at first 
 no more than six superficial feet, will have eight 
 hundred sixty-four superficial feet of artificial 
 pasture ; and so is the soil divisible, and this 
 pasture increasible, ad infinitum. 
 
 “ Poor land does not afford an internal super- 
 
74 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 tides so well stocked with these fruitful particles, 
 as rich land does, but this we may compensate by 
 dividing it more ; to the end that what this arti- 
 ficial pasture wants in quality, may, by division, 
 be made up in quantity. 
 
 “ The common methods of dividing the soil are 
 these, viz. by dung, by tillage , or by both ; for Vis 
 unita fortiori’ 
 
 Having, thus, had described the the manner in 
 which the “ fruitful particles ” of the soil are 
 eliminated, as well as made accessible to the roots 
 of plants, by an easy transition, we may now 
 enter on an examination of Tull’s conceptions, 
 regarding the Food of plants, whether received 
 from the soil or the air : and, on this subject, 
 he thus writes : — 
 
 “ The chief art of a husbandman is to feed 
 plants to tire best advantage ; but how shall he 
 do that, unless he knows what is their food ? By 
 food is meant that matter which, being added and 
 united to the first stamina of plants, or plantulae, 
 which were made in little at the creation, gives 
 them, or rather is their increase. 
 
 “It is agreed that all the following materials 
 contribute in some manner to the increase of 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 75 
 
 plants, but it is disputed which of them is that 
 very increase or food : 1, nitre ; 2, water ; 3, air; 
 4, fire (i. e. heat) ; 5, earth and although light 
 does not appear in this enumeration, its agency in 
 vegetation, we shall presently find, was by no 
 means overlooked by him. 
 
 Thus, then, the several agents in vegetation 
 here cited by Tull may be resolved into three 
 classes: 1, Terrestrial; 2, Atmospheric; 3, 
 Climatal. 
 
 § 1, TERRESTRIAL AGENTS IN VEGETATION. 
 
 That Tull conceived the chief part of the bulk 
 of plants to be composed of substances contributed 
 by the soil, is undeniable ; and thus, in so far as 
 modern discovery has shewn that the carbonic 
 acid gas of the atmosphere is really the chief 
 quantitative source, he was in error. But enter- 
 taining, as he did, a full conviction that plants 
 obtain an important, although, as he thought, 
 not the chief part of their sustenance from the 
 air, we shall afterwards see, that this defect in his 
 physiological knowledge in nowise' led him to 
 underrate the necessity of so conducting his 
 tillage reformations as to procure for his crops 
 a maximum amount of aerial nutriment. 
 
76 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Reverting now to his own question, What 
 substance in nature is that which is the “ very 
 increase or food of plants ? ” he thus answers it : 
 
 “ That which nourishes and augments a plant 
 is the true food of it. 
 
 “ Every plant is earth, and the growth and true 
 increase of a plant is the addition of more earth. 
 When this additional earth is assimilated to the 
 plant, it becomes an absolute part of it. 
 
 “ And earth is so surely the food of all plants, 
 that with the proper share of the other elements, 
 which each species of plants requires, I do not 
 find but that any common earth will nourish any 
 plant. The only difference of soil (except the 
 richness) seems to be the different heat and mois- 
 ture it has ; for if those be rightly adjusted, any 
 soil will nourish any sort of plant.” 
 
 Next, as respects that other terrestrial vege- 
 tative agent, namely, water, derived from the 
 atmosphere, hut existing as moisture in the soil, 
 Tull assigned to it no substantive alimentary 
 quality.* Thus, he says, “ Water, from Van Hel- 
 
 * It is undeniable that Tull was ignorant of the physio- 
 logical fact that water, (both as water and as contributing 
 its elements of oxygen and hydrogen,) is a substantive and 
 indispensable nutriment in the formation of all the parts of 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 77 
 
 mont’s experiment, was by some great philosophers 
 thought to be it” (that is, the very food of plants) ; 
 “ but these were deceived in not observing that 
 water has always in its intervals a charge of earth 
 from which no art can free it.” Hence, then, we 
 see that Tull regarded water as a mere instrument 
 in the process of nutrition, his belief being that 
 “ A plant cannot separate the pabulum of plants 
 from the parts to which they adhere without the 
 assistance of water, which helps to loosen them,”* 
 Thus impressed with the important office per- 
 formed by a proper amount of moisture in the 
 soil, he was no less conscious of the evil effects of 
 supersaturation. Himself farming on a porous 
 substratum of chalk, his experience appears to 
 have embraced no operations of under-draining ; 
 
 plants ; but this led to no defect in his system, because the 
 same processess of tillage devised by him to procure to the 
 soil that degree of moisture requisite to loosen the solid 
 pabulum, also introduced an equally well regulated supply 
 of aqueous aliment. 
 
 * “ Water alone withdraws from the soil none of these 
 substances (phosphoric acid, potash, and ammonia) ; their 
 passing into the organism of plants must, therefore, be 
 directly effected by the organs of absorbtion in the ground. 
 (i. e. the roots,) with the co-operation of water." Modern 
 Agriculture , p. 107. 
 
78 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 and hence there is no mention, direct or incidental, 
 of drainage in his work. Yet he beautifully typi- 
 fied its wonderful effects on vegetation in the 
 following illustration : — 
 
 “ Let thyme and rushes change places, and 
 both will die ; but let them change their soil, by 
 removing the earth wherein the thyme grew, from 
 the dry hill down into the watery bottom, and 
 plant rushes therein ; and carry the moist earth, 
 wherein the rushes grew, up to the hill ; and 
 there thyme will grow in the earth that was taken 
 from the rushes ; and so will the rushes grow in 
 the earth that was taken from the thyme : so that 
 it is only more or less water that makes the same 
 earth fit either for the growth of thyme or rushes.” 
 
 Of that pernicious soddenness of the soil arising 
 from imperfect management, he was well aware ; 
 and accordingly, he thus writes : — 
 
 “ Although hard ground, when thoroughly 
 soaked with rain, will continue wet longer than 
 fine tilled land adjoining to it ; yet this water 
 serves rather to chill than nourish the plants 
 standing therein, and to keep out the other bene- 
 fits of the atmosphere, leaving the ground still 
 harder when it is thence exhaled ; and being at 
 last once become dry, it can admit no more 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 79 
 
 moisture, unless from a long-continued deluge of 
 rain, which seldom falls till winter, which is not 
 the season for vegetation." 
 
 § 2. ATMOSPHERIC AGENTS IN VEGETATION. 
 
 To the air of the Atmosphere he attributed both 
 Physical and Physiological qualities. First : physi- 
 cally he regarded it as a mechanical medium in 
 which particles of earth (in the chemical sense) and 
 effluvia float about, which, though nutritious in 
 their nature, and necessary to vegetation, were 
 nevertheless, he thought, too small in quantity 
 “ to augment vegetables to that bulk they arrive at,” 
 believing, as we have seen, that the constituents 
 of the soil contributed most to the mere bulk of 
 plants. But, whatever might be the real amount 
 of these atmospheric nutriments, he truly believed 
 the foliage as well as the roots to be capable of 
 imbibing and assimilating them ; and amongst 
 their number he specially enumerates nitre, assign- 
 ing to it the property both of promoting, when 
 conveyed by dews and rain into the soil, that 
 really chemical reaction which he termed “ pul- 
 verisation,” and of contributing actual food in the 
 process of vegetation (see quotation, p. 83). That 
 in this, Tull had anticipated the conclusions of the 
 
so 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 nitrogenous theory in the vegetable physiology of 
 the present day, could not justly be claimed for 
 him ; hut, at least, it is no less a surprising than 
 an important circumstance to find (as afterwards 
 we shall) a high authority in the modern contro- 
 versy, citing Tull’s method of tillage as eminently 
 calculated to promote nitrogenous fertilization in 
 vegetable culture. Physiologically , Tull held that 
 the chief office of the air of the atmosphere was 
 “ to purify the sap by the leaves, as the blood of 
 animals is depurated by their lungs.” Now, in so 
 far as modern Vegetable Physiology teaches, that 
 between the oxygen of the atmosphere and the 
 tissues and sap of plants, a certain reaction of 
 vital chemistry takes place, resulting, as in animal 
 respiration, in the formation and ejection of 
 carbonic acid gas, Tull’s proposition, just quoted, 
 may be deemed essentially correct. True it is 
 that Tull was ignorant (for the fact was unknown 
 to science at that time) that another chief office of 
 the air of the atmosphere, is to furnish, through 
 its carbonic acid, what constitutes by far the 
 greatest constituent of plants, namely, Carbon .* 
 
 * Yet the following remarkable passage, in his chapter on 
 the Food of Plants, shews that his habits of inductive 
 observation and reasoning bad led him to the verge of dis- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 81 
 
 But, practically, this deficiency in the scientific 
 knowledge of that day, occasioned no imperfection 
 in Tull’s system, because the same methods of 
 culture designed by him, to give free access to the 
 oxygenous, ammoniacal, and aqueous alimentary 
 components of the atmosphere, equally promoted 
 the abundant accession of its carbonaceous nutri- 
 ment. 
 
 As a very instructive instance of the manner on 
 which Tull was constantly bringing his compre- 
 hensive and fundamentally accurate knowledge in 
 natural science to bear on actual practice, the 
 following quotation from his chapter on “ Blight,’ 
 (based as the instance partly is on an atmospheric 
 phenomenon) may here be given : — 
 
 “ The most effectual remedy against the Blight 
 is that which removes all its causes, as — First : 
 Want of Nourishment. — The horse-hoe will, in 
 wide intervals, give wheat throughout all the 
 stages of its life as much nourishment as the dis- 
 creet hoer pleases. Secondly : Want of Air. — 
 
 covering that carbon is the chief basis of vegetative 
 nutriment. “ Indeed,” he says, “ the true food of plants 
 may be also the fuel of fire, which is so greedy of that food 
 (i, e. vegetable matter) as to carry it all away that comes 
 within reach of the flame.” 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OE 
 
 82 
 
 Air, being a fluid, moves most freely in a right or 
 straight line, for there the fewest of its parts meet 
 with any resistance ; as a straight river runs swifter 
 than a crooked one, from an equal declivity; because 
 more of the water strikes against the banks at the 
 turnings, and is there somewhat retarded; and 
 the rest moving no faster than in the straight 
 river, the whole stream of the crooked must be 
 slower in its course than that of the straight river. 
 
 “ The air cannot pass through sown corn ” (i. e. 
 sown broadcast, in contradistinction to drilled 
 corn) “in a direct line, because it must strike 
 against and go round every plant, they standing all 
 in the way of its course, which must stop its 
 current near the earth ; and the air amongst sown 
 corn is like water amongst reeds or osiers in the 
 side of a river, it is so stopped in its course, that it 
 almost becomes an eddy; and since air is about 
 eight hundred times lighter than water, we may 
 suppose its current through the corn is more 
 easily retarded, especially near the earth, where 
 the corn has occasion for the greatest quantity 
 of air to pass ; for though the upper part of the 
 wheat be not able to stop a slow current of air, 
 yet it does so much raise (i. e. deflect upwards) 
 even a swift one, as to throw it off from the ground, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 83 
 
 and hinder it from reaching the lower parts of 
 the stalks, where the air must therefore remain , in 
 a manner, stagnant ; and the thicker the wheat 
 is, where it stands promiscuously, the less change 
 of air can it have ; though the greater the number of 
 the stalks is, the more fresh air they must require. 
 
 “ But the confused manner in which the plants 
 of sown wheat stand, is such, that they must all 
 oppose the free entrance of ah- amongst them, 
 from whatever point of the compass it comes. 
 
 “ Now, it is quite otherwise with wheat drilled 
 regularly with wide intervals, for therein the 
 current of air may pass freely (like water in a 
 straight river where there is no resistance), and 
 communicate its nitre to the lower as well as 
 upper leaves, and carry off the recrements they 
 emit, not suffering the plants to be weakened, as 
 an animal is, when his lungs are forced to take 
 back their own expirations, if debarred from a 
 sufficient supply of fresh, untainted air. And this 
 benefit of fresh ah’ is plentifully and pretty equally 
 distributed to every row in a field of hoed wheat.” 
 
 § 3. CLIMATIC AGENTS IN VEGETATION. 
 
 Heat and Light. — In commenting on the 
 phenomenon of blight in corn, Tull assigned three 
 
84 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 causes for its occurrence : 1st, want of nourish- 
 ment ; 2nd, want of air (both already noticed) ; 
 and the 3rd, “ want of the sun’s rays.” On 
 this point he thus remarks : — 
 
 “ Sown wheat plants, by their irregular position, 
 may he said to stand in one another’s light for 
 want of which they are apt to fall. 
 
 “It is true, the whole field of plants receive 
 the same quantity of sun-beams amongst them, 
 whether they stand confusedly or in order ; but 
 there is a vast difference in the distribution of 
 them, for none, or the very least share of beams, is 
 obtained by those parts which need the greatest 
 share, in the confused plants. And when the 
 crural parts, that should support the whole body 
 of every plant, are deprived of their due share of 
 what is so necessary to strengthen them, the 
 plants (like animals in the same case) are unable 
 to stand. 
 
 “ But in drilled wheat, where the plants stand 
 in a regular order, the sun-beams are more duly 
 distributed to all parts of the plants in the ranks ; 
 for which way soever the rows are directed, if they 
 be straight, the rays must, sometime of the day, 
 fall on the intervals, and be reflected by the 
 ground, whence the lower parts of the wheat 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 85 
 
 stalks must receive the greater share of heat, 
 being nearest to the point of incidence, having no 
 weeds to shadow them.” 
 
 Now, while it is true that modern discovery has 
 indeed both amplified some of Tull’s generalisa- 
 tions on the terrestrial, atmospheric, and climatal 
 agencies in vegetation, and modified others, it is 
 impossible to allege, that hitherto it has imported 
 into agricultural science any fresh knowledge 
 which lessens the validity of his propositions as 
 bases on which he constructed his reformed 
 practice ; while, again, the reader will, farther 
 on, find this comprehensive genius fashioning 
 expedients of actual farming, evidently on the 
 bold and well founded conception that the atmo- 
 sphere and its various constituents, nay even the 
 very heat and light of the sun were parts and 
 pertinents of the freehold ; and, as such, no less 
 claiming the reasoning husbandman’s regard in 
 his methods of tillage, than the soil itself. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 80 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.— THEORY OF TILLAGE, CONTIN f JED. 
 
 § 1, Of the Roots of Corn Plants. Their Instincts in Search of Food. 
 — Their Function of Subdivision. This increased by Mechanical 
 Severance Analagous to Pruning. Liebig cited, § 2, Of the Tillering 
 of Corn Plants. This Function of primary importance in Tullian 
 Husbandry. Thin Sowing Augments it.- — Quantity of Seed per 
 Acre Sown by Tull. Principles which guided him in Sowing. — 
 Usual number of Stalks to a Single Seed in Broadcast Sowing. — 
 Great increase of these in his Method. § 3, Of Nourishing 
 the Plant by Tillage during its Growth. Great proportion of 
 Plants which Die Out in Ordinary Culture. § 4, Of the Progres- 
 sive Amelioration of the Soil produced by Horse Hoeing Tillage. 
 — The Reasons Explained. Horse Hoed Corn less Exhaustive 
 than Sown Corn. The proportion of Grain greater, and of Straw 
 less, in Horse Hoed Corn than Broadcast. Six Successive Crops 
 without Dung or Fallow instanced in Confimation of this. — 
 Nothing added to the Soil in these instances except what Evelyn 
 calls the “ Celestial Influences.” 
 
 § I, OF THE ROOTS OF CORN PLANTS. 
 
 “ All roots,” he says,' “ have branchings and 
 fibres going all manner of ways, ready to fill the 
 earth that is open, — meaning thereby that the 
 spreading of radical filaments in search of food, 
 and hence the quantity of food obtained by them, 
 in a fertile soil, is in proportion to that openness 
 of texture which thorough tillage accomplishes. 
 These fine threads, he truly held, even in annual 
 plants, such as coni, radiate several feet distant 
 from the central root. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 37 
 
 Another property he correctly assigned to these 
 rootlets is, that not only do they naturally, in 
 their uncultivated growth, undergo a process of 
 ramification so as to search out every cranny 
 from whence nutriment may be drawn, hut, if 
 mechanically severed , they much more multiply in 
 a manner analagous to the vast number of shoots 
 which issue from the stump of a lopped branch. 
 
 “ It is true,” says Tull, “ that in the last 
 hoeings, even in the middle of a large interval, 
 many of the roots may be broken off by the hoe- 
 plough, at some considerable distance from the 
 bodies ; but yet this is no damage, for they send 
 out a greater number of roots.” “ And these new, 
 young, multiplied roots are fuller of lacteal mouths 
 than the older ones, which makes it no wonder 
 that plants should thrive faster by having some of 
 their roots broken off by the hoe for as (the 
 first produced) roots do not enter every pore of 
 the earth, but miss great part of the pasture, 
 which is left unexhausted, so when new roots 
 strike out from the broken parts of the old, they 
 meet with that pasture which their predecessors 
 missed, besides that new pasture which the hoe 
 raises for them; and those roots which the hoe 
 pulls out without breaking and covers again, are 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 88 
 
 turned into a fresh pasture ; some broken and 
 some unbroken, altogether invigorate the plants. 
 Moreover, in hoeing a plant, the additional nourish- 
 ment thereby given enables it to send out innumerable 
 additional fibres and roots, which fully demonstrates, 
 that a plant increaseth its mouths, in some proportion, 
 to the increase of food given to it; so that hoeing, by 
 the new pasture it raises, furnishes both food and 
 mouths to plants ; and it is for tvant of hoeing that 
 so few are brought to their full growth and 
 perfection. 
 
 Such the physiological facts in relation to the 
 properties of roots recorded by a practical husband- 
 man, teaching a reformed practice of husbandry 
 in the first half of the 17th century ; and now the 
 inductions of a leading philosopher of the latter 
 part of the 19th, addressing himself to the modern 
 agriculturist: “An accumulation of nourishment 
 in the upper layer of the field enables plants, 
 during the first period of their developement, to 
 send out ten-fold, perhaps a hundred-fold, more 
 absorbing rootlets, than they otherwise would have 
 done ; and their later growth will be in proportion 
 to the greater number of rootlets thus gained, by 
 which they are enabled to seek and appropriate 
 the food distributed sparingly throughout the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 89 
 
 deeper layers." — Liebig , on Modern Agriculture, 
 p. 72. 
 
 § II, OF THE TILLERING OF CORN PLANTS, AND THIN 
 SOWING. 
 
 1 . Of Tillering. 
 
 “To tiller is to branch out into many stalks, and 
 is the country word that signifies the same with 
 fructicare. 
 
 Tull attached very primary importance to that 
 phenomenon termed tillering or stooling, which 
 belongs to the corn plants, in common with the 
 other grasses. Destitute of a true stem, the corn 
 grasses (of which only we shall here speak) 
 generate their buds in contact with the roots, 
 sending their branches (which is the real nature 
 of the straw) vertically upwards into the air, and 
 not horizontally as in most vegetables. Now, in 
 the process of tillering he observed, that the 
 number of buds, and hence, consequently, the 
 number of ear bearing stalks which issue from 
 the seedling, was greater or less, — first, in pro- 
 portion to the fertility of the soil, whether that 
 fertility was created by tillage and manure, or 
 more tillage and less manure, or much tillage and 
 
90 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 no manure ; — and secondly, in proportion to the 
 freedom from overcrowding, attainable by a sparing 
 use of seed. 
 
 2. Of Thin Sowing. 
 
 It will be instructive to quote some of his 
 precepts on this important subject of thin sowing, 
 of which, as of every other chief improvement of 
 modern agriculture, he is the undisputed, though 
 forgotten author. 
 
 “ Six gallons of middle-sized seed we most 
 commonly drill on an acre ; yet on rich land 
 planted early, four gallons may suffice ; because 
 then the wheat will have roots at the top of the 
 ground before winter, and tiller very much, with- 
 out danger of the worms, and other accidents that 
 late-planted wheat is liable to. 
 
 “ If it is drilled too thick, it will be in danger 
 of falling ; if too thin, it may happen to tiller so 
 late in the spring, that some of the ears may be 
 blighted, yet a little thicker or thinner does not 
 matter. 
 
 “ A too great number of plants do neither tiller, 
 nor produce so large ears, nor make half so good 
 a crop, as a bare competent number of plants will. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 91 
 
 “ When wheat is planted early, less seed is 
 required, than when late ; because less of it will 
 die in the winter, than of that planted late, and 
 it has more time to tiller. 
 
 “ Poor land should have more seed than rich 
 land, because a less number of the plants will 
 survive the winter on poor land. 
 
 “ The least quantity of seed may suffice for rich 
 land that is planted early ; for thereon very few 
 plants will die : and the hoe will cause a small 
 number of plants to send out a vast number of 
 stalks, which will have large ears, and in these, 
 more than in the number of plants, consists the 
 goodness of a crop. 
 
 “ Another thing must be considered, in order 
 to find the just proportion of seed to plant ; and 
 that is, that some wheat has its grains twice as 
 big as other wheat of the same sort, and then a 
 bushel will contain but half the number of grains : 
 and one bushel of small-grained wheat will plant 
 as much ground as two bushels of the large- 
 grained; for, in truth, it is not the measure of the 
 seed, but the number of the grains, to which 
 respect ought to be had in apportioning the 
 quantity of it to the land. 
 
 “ Some have thought, that a large grain of 
 
02 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 wheat would produce a larger plant than a small 
 grain, but I have full experience to the contrary. 
 The small grain, indeed, sends up its first single 
 blade in proportion to its own bulk ; but after- 
 wards becomes as large a plant as the largest 
 grain can produce, cceteris paribus. 
 
 “Farmers in general know this, and choose the 
 thinnest smallest grained wheat for seed ; and 
 therefore prefer that which is blighted and lodged, 
 and that which grows on new-broke ground, and 
 is not fit for bread, not only because this thin 
 wheat has more grains in a bushel; but also 
 because such seed is least liable to produce a 
 smutty crop, and yet brings grains as large as any. 
 
 “ I myself had as full proofs of this as can 
 possibly be made in both respects. 
 
 “ It was from such small seeds that my drilled 
 Lammas-wheat produced the ears of that monstrous 
 length* described in this chapter. I never saw the 
 like, except in that one year ; and the grains were 
 large also. 
 
 “ And as full proofs have I seen of thin seed 
 wheat escaping the smut, when plump large-grained 
 seed of the same sort have been smutty. 
 
 See § iii, of this chapter. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 93 
 
 “ As to the depth, we may plant from half an 
 inch to three inches deep. If planted too deep, 
 there is more danger of its being eaten off by 
 worms, betwixt the grain and the blade ; for as 
 that thread is the thread of life during the winter 
 (if not planted early), so the longer the thread 
 is, the more danger there will be of the 
 worms. 
 
 “ A wheat-plant, that is not planted early, sends 
 out no root above the grain before the spring ; 
 and is nourished all the winter by a single thread, 
 proceeding from the grain up to the surface of the 
 ground.” 
 
 But to revert to the phenomenon of tillering, 
 on which he so greatly relied. Having, as we 
 have seen, fertilised his soil by tillage, and 
 promoted the permeation of the roots by pulver- 
 isation — having by these means, as well as by 
 actual severance, multiplied the roots, and thereby 
 increased their absorbent surface ; having also, 
 by drilling and thin seeding, secured to the grow- 
 ing plant the freest accession of air, heat, and 
 light ; need we be surprised to find Tull thus 
 writing : — “ we augment our wheat crops by in- 
 creasing” (i. e. causing to tiller) “ the number of 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 94 
 
 stalks, from one, two or three, to thirty or forty, 
 in ordinary field land.”* 
 
 “ The same plant that, when poor, sends out but 
 two or three tillers, would, if well nourished by the 
 hoe or otherwise, send up a multitude of tillers, as 
 is seen in hoed wheat and sown wheat. 
 
 “ But though a too great number of plants be 
 upon many accounts very injurious, yet it is best to 
 have a competent number, which yet needs not he 
 so exact but that we may expect a great crop from 
 twenty, forty, or fifty plants in a yard of the treble 
 row, if well managed.” 
 
 § III. OF NOURISHING THE PLANT BY TILLAGE DURING 
 ITS GROWTH. 
 
 But Tull also taught that, to induce mere 
 tillering was not enough, unless each stalk and 
 each ear so produced, should he assiduously 
 nurtured during its growth into full perfection ; 
 and such, accordingly, was the design of his 
 horse-hoeing husbandry, by which the benefits 
 
 * The Rev. Mr. Smith, describing the success of his 
 Tullian experiment, says, there is scarcely a plant but 
 tillers twenty, thirty, or forty stalks to a grain. “A Word 
 in Season,” 15 th Edition , p. 16. 
 
TILLAGE ANI> MANURING. 
 
 95 
 
 of frequent interculture should be imparted to 
 the growing corn up to the time of its shedding 
 the bloom. Beyond this period he found it 
 inexpedient to prolong the operation. 
 
 “By this means,” says he, “We augment our 
 wheat crops four ways ; not in number of plants, 
 
 • but in stalks, ears, and grains. 
 
 “ The first is by increasing the number of stalks 
 from one, two, or three, to thirty or forty to a 
 plant, in ordinary field land. 
 
 “ We augment the crop, by bringing up all the 
 stalks into ears, which is the second way ; for if it 
 be diligently observed, we shall find that not half 
 the stalks of sown wheat come into ear. 
 
 “ If a square yard of sown wheat be marked 
 out, and the stalks thereon numbered in the 
 spring, it will be found that nine parts in ten are 
 missing at harvest.* 
 
 “ I saw an experiment of this in rows of wheat 
 that were equally poor, one of these rows was 
 increased so much, as to produce more grains 
 than ten of the other, by bringing up more of its 
 stalks into ears, and also by augmenting its ears 
 
 * See “ Stevens' Book of the Farm," § 2393, for some very 
 striking particulars connected with this subject. 
 
90 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 to a much greater bigness, which is the third 
 way ; for it is pretty plain that the ears are formed 
 together with the stalks, and will be very large or 
 very small, in proportion to the nourishment given 
 them; like as the vines, if well nourished, bring 
 large bunches of grapes ; but if ill nourished, 
 they produce few bunches, and those small ones ; 
 and many claspers are formed, which would have 
 been bunches, if they had had sufficient nourish- 
 ment given them at the proper time. 
 
 “ The last and fourth way of augmenting the 
 produce of wheat plants, is by causing them to 
 have large and plump grains in the ears ; and this 
 can no way be so effectually done, as by late 
 hoeing, especially just after the wheat is gone out 
 of the blossom, and when such hoed grains weigh 
 double the weight of the same number of unhoed 
 (which they frequently will), though the number 
 of grains in the hoed are equal, yet the hoed crop 
 must be double. 
 
 “ Thus by increasing the number of stalks, 
 bringing more of them up into ear, making the 
 ears larger, and the grain plumper and fuller of 
 flour, the hoeing method makes a greater crop 
 from a tenth part of the plants, than the sowing 
 method can. The fact of this nobody can doubt 
 
TIM. AGE AND MANURING. 
 
 97 
 
 who lias observed the different products of strong 
 and of weak plants, how the one exceeds the 
 other. 
 
 “ In a large ground of wheat it was proved, 
 that the widest hoed intervals brought the 
 greatest crop of all : dung without hoeing, did 
 not equal hoeing without dung. And what was 
 most remarkable, amongst twelve differences of 
 wider and narrower spaces, more and less hoed, 
 dunged and undunged, the hand-sowed was con- 
 siderably the worst of all ; though all the winter, 
 and the beginning of the spring, that made 
 infinitely the most promising appearance ; but at 
 harvest yielded but about one-fifth part of wheat 
 of that which was most hoed, there was some of 
 the most hoed, which yielded eighteen ounces of 
 clean wheat in a yard in length of a double row, 
 the intervals being thirty inches and the partition 
 six inches. 
 
 “ The same harvest, a yard in length of a 
 double row of barley, having six inches partition, 
 produced eight hundred and eighty ears in a 
 garden ; but the grains happened to be eaten by 
 poultry before it was ripe, so that their produce of 
 grains could not be known. One like yard of a 
 
 u 
 
98 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 hoed row of wheat in an undunged field, produced 
 four hundred ears of Lammas wheat. 
 
 “ I have numbered one hundred and nine grains 
 in one ear of my hoed cone wheat of the grey 
 sort ; and one ear of my hoed Lammas wheat 
 has been measured to be eight inches long, which 
 is double those of sown wheat ; indeed, it is not 
 every year they grow to that length, and it is 
 always where the plants are pretty single ; but 
 there is no year wherein one ear of my hoed does 
 not weigh more than two of the sown ears, taking 
 a whole sheaf of each together, without choosing.” 
 
 § IV. OF THE PROGRESSIVE AMELIORATION OF THE 
 SOIL, PRODUCED BY HORSE-HOE CULTURE. 
 
 Tull found that, without the use of any manures, 
 his method of corn tillage was such as to main- 
 tain his land in full heart, notwithstanding un- 
 intermittent wheat growing (for ultimately, he 
 raised neither barley or oats) ; nay, more, he 
 had the unequivocal testimony of progressively 
 more abundant crops to convince himself and 
 others, that he was actually ameliorating the 
 staple. His neighbours, he writes, “ allow that my 
 farm is one-third better for a tenant than when 
 I took it in hand;” and the world attested his 
 
TILLAGE AN1) MANURING. 99 
 
 success by flocking to witness his practice, and 
 by importuning him to promulgate, through the 
 press, the means by which that success had been 
 attained. Even his detractors (stirred up by the 
 booksellers, whom he had enraged by publishing 
 his work on his own account), bore evidence to 
 the same fact, by falsely attributing the notorious 
 abundance of his harvests to a rich soil. 
 
 Explanatory of the increasing fertility of his 
 land under this management, he writes, — “ The 
 plants of sown corn being treble in number to 
 those of the drilled, and of equal strength and 
 bulk, whilst they are very young, must exhaust 
 the earth whilst it is open, thrice as much as the 
 drilled plants do ; and before the sown plants 
 grow large, the pores of the earth are shut against 
 them, and against the benefit of the atmosphere ; 
 but for the drilled, the hoe gives constant admis- 
 sion to that benefit; and if the hoe procures them, 
 (by dividing the earth) four times the pasture of 
 the sown, during their lives, and the roots devour 
 but one half of that, then, though the hoed crop 
 should be double to the sown, yet it might leave 
 twice as much pabulum for a succeeding crop. It 
 is impossible to bring these calculations to mathe- 
 matical rules, but this is certain in practice, that 
 
100 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 a sown crop, succeeding a large roadimged hoed 
 crop, is much better than a sown crop, that 
 succeeds a small dunged sown crop. And I have 
 the experience of poor, worn-out heath-ground, 
 that, having produced four successive good hoed 
 crops of potatoes (the last still best), is become 
 tolerable good ground. 
 
 “ To the reasons already given there is another 
 to be added, why horse-hoed wheat exhausts the 
 soil less than sown crops, where the product of 
 wheat produced by each is equal ; which reason 
 is, that the former has much less straw than the 
 latter; as appears by the different quantities of 
 grain that a sheaf of each, of equal diameter, 
 yields ; one of the former yielding generally double 
 to one of the latter ; for a sheaf of the sown has 
 not only more small under ears, but also its best 
 ears bear a less proportion to their straw than the 
 other ; for a straw of sown wheat six feet high, I 
 have found to have an ear but of half the size of 
 an ear of drilled wheat on a stalk five feet high, 
 having measured both of them standing in the 
 field, and rubbed out the grain of them. This 
 difference I impute to the different supply of 
 nourishment at the time when the ears are 
 forming. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 101 
 
 ‘ ‘ Thus the sown crop exhausts a soil much 
 more by its greater quantity of straw. 
 
 “ And this is one reason why annual crops of 
 sown wheat cannot succeed as crops of horse-hoed 
 wheat do. There must be dung and fallow to 
 repair the exhaustion of the sown ; neither of 
 which are necessary for crops of the horse-hoed. 
 
 “ A field that is a sort of a heath- ground, used 
 to bring such poor crops of corn, that heretofore 
 the parson carried away a whole crop of oats from 
 it, believing it had been only his tithe. The best 
 management that ever they did or could bestow 
 upon it, was to let it rest two or three years, and 
 then fallow and dung it, and sow it with wheat, 
 next to that with barley and clover, and then let 
 it rest again ; but I cannot hear of any good crop 
 that it ever produced by this or any other of their 
 methods ; it was still reckoned so poor, that no- 
 body cared to rent it. They said dung and labour 
 were thrown away upon it : then immediately 
 after two sown crops of black oats had been taken 
 off' it, the last of which was scarce worth the 
 mowing, it was put into the hoeing management, 
 and when three hoed crops had been taken from 
 it, it was sown with barley, and brought a very 
 good crop, much better than ever it was known to 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 102 
 
 yield before ; and then a good crop of hoed wheat 
 succeeded the barley ; and then it was again sown 
 with barley, upon the wheat stubble ; and that 
 also was better than the barley it used to 
 produce. 
 
 “ Now, all the farmers of the neighbourhood 
 affirm, that it is impossible but that this must be 
 very rich ground, because they have seen it pro- 
 duce six crops in six years, without dung or fallow, 
 and never one of them fail ! But, alas, this 
 different reputation they give to the land, does not 
 at all belong to it, but to the different sorts of 
 husbandry ; for the nature of it cannot be altered 
 but by that, the crops being all carried off it, and 
 nothing added to supply the substance those crops 
 take from it, except (what Mr. Evelyn calls) the 
 celestial influences, and that these are received 
 by the earth, in proportion to the degrees of its 
 
 PULVERISATION. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER IX.— AN EPITOME OF TULL’S DIRECTIONS FOR 
 THE PRACTICE OF HIS SYSTEM OF TILLAGE. 
 
 § 1. Of Changing the Fields from the Old to the New Method. — 
 § 2, Of Sowing. — § 3, Of Horse Hoeing. — § 4, Of Hand Hoeing. 
 § 5, Of Reaping. — § 0, Of Ploughing the Stubbles, and preparing 
 the ground for the next crop. — The Great Operative Economy of 
 Tullian Husbandry. 
 
 Hitherto we have been engaged in preliminary, 
 though very important matter, preparatory to now 
 entering on a description of Tull’s actual prac- 
 tice of husbandry, divisible into — 
 
 § 1. The Means by w'hich he progressively 
 changed the culture of his fields from the Old to 
 his own New husbandry. 
 
 § 2. The Sowing and relative processes. 
 
 § 3. The Intercultural processes of Horse- 
 hoeing. 
 
 § 4. The Hand-hoeing operations. 
 
 § 5. The Reaping. 
 
 § 0. The Preparing of the Stubbles for the next 
 crop. 
 
 § 1 . The transitional 7 / processes from the Old to the New 
 Husbandry. 
 
 In describing his manner of subdividing the 
 fields into Tullian ridges, Tull takes, by way of 
 
104 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 examplar, an acre, of the dimensions of sixty- 
 six feet (a chain length) broad, and six hundred 
 and sixty feet (ten chain lengths) long. 
 
 Always making the change succeed a bare 
 fallow, he, at the proper season, formed narrow 
 ridges, at the rate, during the first part of his 
 experience, of eleven to the acre’s breadth (hence 
 six feet each), and latterly, of fourteen to the 
 acre, giving, in that case, four feet eight inches 
 per ridge, as near as may be. Allowing a width 
 of nine inches to each fur the broader ridge 
 consequently contained eight such furs, and the 
 narrower, six. 
 
 For reasons which will afterwards be stated, a 
 greater or less degree of gathering was practised, 
 so as always to leave a parting fur or balk, 
 eighteen inches wide at bottom, and completely 
 bared of soil, by turning a plough slice, the full 
 depth of the staple, towards each of the adjoining 
 ridges. 
 
 In this manner, assuming a six-feet ridge 
 to consist, when first marked out, of eight furs, 
 and the narrower one, of six, the staple of the 
 ridges by the accession of the mould gathered 
 from the balks was increased one-fourth in the 
 former, and one-third in the latter. Such was 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 105 
 
 the simple method by which, field after field, Tull 
 started in his new practice. 
 
 § 2. The Sowini) and its relative processes. 
 
 And here the more characteristic details of 
 Tull’s system commenced ; for in place of seeding 
 the entire breadth of the ridges — along its cen- 
 tral line, only, did the drill machine pass, — 
 depositing from one to four equi-distant rows, 
 according as experience led him, from year to 
 year, to vary the number ; and thus each set of 
 rows was flanked, right and left, by an unseeded 
 space, bounded exteriorly by the bared balk. By 
 constructing a double-bodied drill machine, and 
 coupling two small harrows by a wide cross-bar, he 
 was enabled both to sow and to harrow two ridges 
 at a time ; the animal drawing either implement, 
 walking midway in the parting fur, or bared balk. 
 
 Let us next anticipate, very briefly, the offices 
 assigned to the un seeded spaces on either side the 
 rows. 
 
 First. By virtue of spring and summer horse- 
 hoe workings in these, conjointly with hand-hoeing 
 in the rows, the extermination of every kind of 
 
106 THE principles of 
 
 foul vegetation was attained. Secondly : The soil 
 composing them, became, by means of that con- 
 tinuous tillage, a highly fertilized source, from 
 which, in addition to the sustenance yielded by 
 the mould of the rows, the growing plants were 
 able to draw more and more nutrition, the 
 more and more their increasing bulk demanded 
 it. And, thirdly, these uncropped spaces ulti- 
 mately became, by that operation of the plough 
 termed feering , the seed beds, (accumulated in 
 the bared balks), of the next ensuing crop. 
 
 And here, again, the value of Tull’s discoveries 
 in the physiology of roots is strikingly evinced, 
 since he conclusively determined that those of 
 the central rows not only radiated wide into the 
 lateral fallows, but had their function to collect 
 nutriment, as well as that nutriment itself 
 increased by the summer stirrings. 
 
 Still, however, in like manner as any given 
 space of pasture ground can only maintain a 
 limited number of beasts, so a certain area of 
 tilled soil can rear a certain number, only, of corn 
 plants ; and a chief part of Tull’s early experi- 
 mental practice, was, to find out what stock of 
 plants his own soil was competent to feed. But 
 he neither expected to discover, nor did discover, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 107 
 
 any general formula on this point ; concluding 
 truly, that the ratio must be as variable as the 
 variety of soils in point both of fertility and 
 climatal circumstances. Nevertheless, the me- 
 thods by which he guaged, so to speak, the 
 amount of cereal productiveness into which, by 
 liorse-hoeing tillage, the staple of his own farm 
 could yearly be stimulated, are of universal 
 application. 
 
 Thus, experimenting, first with double rows, 
 in each ridge, he abandoned that number for 
 a time, and tried quadruple and triple drills on 
 ridges slightly gathered ; but the plants in the 
 inner rows, developing themselves less completely 
 than the exterior ones, he hence concluded, that 
 therein was exhibited clear evidence of imperfect 
 arrangement; and, in subsequent trials, he still 
 more heaped the ridges, insomuch, that in pro- 
 portion as the inner rows were more and more 
 removed from the nutriment in the fallow spaces, 
 each had a deeper and deeper soil to root in. 
 Complete equality of growth was now the result ; 
 but, on the other hand, he likewise found, that 
 too much mould had thereby been withdrawn 
 from the fallow spaces. For years, however, he 
 persevered with three rows, for several reasons. 
 
108 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OR 
 
 One of these shall be mentioned afterwards, p. 113. 
 Another “ was, that when part of a row was trodden 
 out by hunters, or torn out by any accident, there 
 might remain two rows entire, for when such acci- 
 dents should happen to a double row, one only 
 remaining in such places, might be too little 
 between wide intervals while, a third reason, 
 “ was the alloy the middle row makes to the too 
 great luxuriousness of the other two rows.” 
 Writing, however, at a subsequent period of his 
 experience, he thus observes, “ I now choose to 
 have fourteen ridges to an acre, four feet eight 
 inches each, and one only partition of ten inches 
 in each of them,” (i.e , two rows, ten inches apart 
 in each ridge.) 
 
 “ This, I find, answers all the ends I propose. If 
 the partitions are narrower, there is not sufficient 
 room in them for the hand-hoe to do its work 
 effectually ; if wider, too much earth will (by being 
 withdrawn from the fallow spaces) lose the benefit 
 of the horse-hoe. If I am taxed with levity in 
 changing my treble rows for double ones, it will 
 not appear to be done of a sudden, for, in my first 
 directions, I advised double rows where hand- 
 hoeing was likely to be necessary. I also advised 
 the trial of both sorts. And, now, upon fuller 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 109 
 
 experience, I tint! the double rows much preferable 
 to the treble, especially for wheat. 
 
 “ By all these three methods I have had very 
 good crops ; but as this I now describe is the 
 latest, and is (as it ought to be) the best, I pub- 
 lish it as such, without partiality to my own 
 opinions ; for I think it less dishonourable to 
 expose my errors, when I chance to detect them, 
 than to conceal them ; and, as I aim at nothing 
 but the truth, I cannot, with any satisfaction to 
 myself, suffer anything of my own, knowingly to 
 escape, that is in the least contrary to it.” 
 
 Throughout the whole work the same spirit of 
 honesty and candour is seen, in union with manly 
 boldness, both in forming his judgments, and 
 expressing his opinions. 
 
 § 3 . The intercut tural processes of Horse Hoeing. 
 
 Of the train of successive operations belonging 
 to this branch of Tullian culture, the first com- 
 menced as soon as the seedling plants shewed 
 the second blade ; and it consisted in passing a 
 suitable plough along the outer side of each outer 
 row, and in throwing, in one strong slice, the 
 whole mould of the fallow space into the bared 
 
110 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 balk, which thus became occupied by a massive 
 fur of loosened soil obtained from either hand. 
 By this operation, also, the remaining crown of 
 each ridge was so scarped on each side, as to 
 become a flattened ridge, bearing on its surface 
 the seedling rows ; and thus stood the autumn- 
 sown wheat all winter. 
 
 In this process, says Tull, “ we are not so 
 exact as to the weather, in the first hoeing ; for if 
 the earth be wet, the hoe-plough may go the 
 nearer to the row, without burying the wheat. 
 
 “ The greatest fault you can commit in hoeing, is 
 the first time, when the furrow is turned from the 
 row, not to go near enough to it, nor deep enough. 
 You cannot then go too near it, unless you plough 
 it out or bury it with mould, and do not uncover 
 it; nor too deep, unless you go below the staple 
 of the ground. For if the hoe-plough does not at 
 the first hoeing go deep and near to the rows, the 
 subsided earth will, especially in strong land, be 
 as a wall to confine the roots of all the rows from 
 entering the interval in the spring and summer, 
 which is the time they require most nourishment 
 from it. 
 
 “ In very light land, perhaps, we must not hoe 
 quite so near to the rows of wheat as in strong 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 Ill 
 
 laud, for fear the winter should lay the roots bare, 
 and expose them too much to the cold ; hut then 
 we may be sure that in this case the roots will 
 reach the interval at a greater distance than in 
 strong land ; yet such very light land is not proper 
 for wheat. 
 
 “The outside rows of wheat from which the earth 
 is hoed off, before or in the beginning of winter, 
 and left almost bare until the spring, one would 
 think should suffer by the frost coming so near 
 them, or for want of pasture, but it appears to be 
 quite contrary; for where the hoe has gone nearest 
 to a row, its plants thrive best; the earth, which 
 the frost hath pulverized, being within the reach 
 of the young short roots, on that side of the row 
 from the top to the bottom of the trench, nourishes 
 them at first, and before the plants have much 
 exhausted this, as they grow larger in the spring, 
 the ridge from the middle of the interval is thrown 
 to them, having a perfectly unexhausted pasture 
 to supply their increasing bulk with more nourish- 
 ment. 
 
 “ The row standing as it were on the brink of 
 this almost perpendicular ditch, the water runs off 
 quickly, or doth not enter but a very little way 
 into this steep side ; so that the earth at the 
 
] 12 
 
 THK PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 plants being dry, the frost doth not reach quite to 
 all their roots to hurt them, though the distance 
 from the air to the roots be very short, and dry 
 earth doth not freeze as wet doth, neither is this 
 ditch much exposed to the cold winds.” 
 
 Respecting the furrow slices feered into the 
 balk, it is most obvious, that no contrivance could 
 be conceived, better calculated to obtain for the 
 removed soil, during the vicissitudes of winter 
 weather, abundant atmospheric impregnation, as 
 well as that most beneficial pulverisation effected 
 by alternate frost and thaw. 
 
 “ Water, or moisture, when it is frozen in the 
 earth, takes up more room than in its natural 
 state ; this swelling of the ice (which is water 
 congealed) must move and break the earth where- 
 with it is mixed : and when it thaws, the earth is 
 left hollow and open, which is a kind of hoeing to 
 it. This benefit is done chiefly to, and near, the 
 surface : consequently the more surface there is 
 by the unevenness of the land, the more advantage 
 the soil has from the frost. 
 
 “ This is another very great use of the ridge left 
 in the middle of the interval during the winter ; 
 because that ridge, and its two furrows, contain 
 four times as much surface as when level. This 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING 
 
 113 
 
 thus pulverised surface turned in, in the spring 
 hoeing, enriches the earth in proportion to its 
 increase of internal superficies, and likewise 
 proportionally nourishes the plants whose roots 
 enter it; and that part of it wherein they do not 
 enter, must remain more enriched for the next 
 crop, than if the soil had remained level all the 
 winter.” 
 
 Then comes spring ; when, after the great 
 frosts are passed, and the weather will allow it, 
 the directions are, to split up the balk-ridge, 
 laying a furrow slice against the seed platforms on 
 either hand ; in doing which, care less for com- 
 pletely re-emptying the balk of earth, than not to 
 project loose soil from the mould board over the 
 tender wheat rows. 
 
 That in this, as well as in the prior opposite 
 process of slicing from the rows, some operative 
 dexterity must have been requisite to avoid tear- 
 ing out the seedling wheats in the one case, and 
 burying them in the other, is no doubt true ; and 
 at first, this formed one of the several reasons 
 (the others were mentioned at p. 108,) for Tull’s 
 prolonging, at first, his use of the triple 
 rows, the supernumerary third drill acting as a 
 reserve to make up for accidents ; but ultimately, 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES ()!• 
 
 this reason as well as the rest disappeared ; “ for 
 now, the ploughmen know how to hoe well, they 
 never plough out any part of the outside row and 
 as for the other risk of burying, we find him, in a 
 computation of the acreable expenses of his hus- 
 bandry, thus writing: — “For a boy or a woman 
 to follow the hoe-plough, to uncover the young- 
 wheat, when any clods or earth happen to fall on 
 it, which trouble is seldom necessary above once 
 to a crop, two-pence an acre." 
 
 But to proceed with the sequel of Tull's yearly 
 course of horse-hoeing processes ; and these con- 
 sisted in alternate summer turnings of the mould 
 of the fallow space, from the rows to the balks, 
 and from thence back to the rows. At last, just as the 
 ripening ears began to shed their bloom, the thus 
 highly impregnated and pulverized soil was heaped 
 up against the flanks of the rows to be penetrated, 
 during the period of fructification, by a fresh and 
 multiplied issue of root threads, which thus were 
 enabled to draw nutriment from every pore, and to 
 transmit it, through the assimilating vessels of the 
 stalks to the ears, — there to be transformed into 
 exuberant productiveness, both in the number and 
 size of the corn grains. 
 
 In regard to these summer workings, (of which 
 
T1LLAUK AND MANURING. 
 
 115 
 
 Tull himself remarked, that they have “ every year 
 the effect of a summer fallow, though it yearly 
 produce a good crop”), the following precepts may 
 be quoted : “ As to how many times wheat [or 
 any other land of corn] is to be hoed in summer 
 after this spring operation, it depends upon the 
 circumstances and condition of the land and 
 weather ; but be the season as it will, never suffer 
 the weeds to grow high, nor let any unmoved 
 earth lie in the middle of the intervals [i.e. fallow 
 spaces] long enough to grow hard ; neither plough 
 (i.e. horse-hoe] deep near the rows in the summer, 
 when the plants are large, but as deep in the middle 
 of the intervals as the staple will allow ; turning 
 the earth towards the wheat, especially at the last 
 hoeing, so as to leave a deep wide trench in the 
 middle of each interval. 
 
 “ They object against us, saying, that sometimes 
 hoeing makes wheat too strong and gross, whereby 
 it becomes the more liable to the blacks, or blight 
 of insects ; but this is the fault of the hoer, for he 
 may choose whether he will make it too strong ; 
 because he may apply his hoeings at proper times 
 only, and appobtion the noueispiment to the 
 number and bulk of his plants." 
 
 What nourishment ? We reply ; that “ manur- 
 
116 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 ing power in the air, which modern scientific 
 research tells us, is probably much greater than 
 we conceive,* and which “ not confined to periods 
 of rain, and not even limited to the periodical 
 occurrence of dew ”f is in the dry heat of summer 
 as in the moisture and cold of winter and spring, 
 ever ready to yield its blessed influence to soils 
 in proportion to the assiduity of tillage, they receive, 
 at the hands of the husbandman. 
 
 The following use of the horse-hoe, suggested 
 by Tull as a remedy for Moor (Root) loose, may 
 here he quoted, as well as his reflections on the 
 cause of that calamity: — 
 
 “ Another sort of lodging blight there is,” (he 
 had just before been treating of those kinds 
 arising from want of air and light, see before, pp. 
 79, 83,) “which some call Moor loose, and mostly 
 happens on light land ; this is when the earth, 
 sinking away from the roots, leaves the bottom 
 of the stalk higher than the subsided ground, and 
 then the plant having only these naked roots to 
 support it, (for which they are too weak,) falls 
 down to the earth. 
 
 * Way, “ Royal Agricultural Journal Vol. xi, p. 377. 
 
 •( Ibid, Vol. xiii, p. 140. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 117 
 
 “ To remedy this, turn a shallow furrow against 
 the rows, when they are strong enough to bear it, 
 and when the mould is very fine and dry ; then 
 the motion of the stalks by the wind will cause 
 such earth to run through the rows, and settle 
 about the roots and cover them * 
 
 “ Some land is very subject to the misfortune 
 of exposing the roots, and therefore is less proper 
 for wheat ; for when the roots are left bare to the 
 air, they will be shrivelled and unable to support 
 the plants : and on such lands the wheat plants 
 have all fallen down, though in number and big- 
 ness not sufficient to have produced the fourth 
 part of a tolerable crop if they had stood. 
 
 “ 1 am inclined to believe, that a thorough 
 tillage might be a remedy to such a loose hollow 
 soil; for it is certain, to a demonstration, that it 
 would render it more dense, and increase its spe- 
 cific gravity; but to enrich it sufficiently, without 
 manure, the tillage must pulverise it much more 
 minutely, and expose it longer than is required 
 for the strongest land. The fold also will be very 
 helpful on such hollow land. 
 
 * See also “ Lois Weedon Husbandry pp. 78 and 79, 
 where the adoption of the same expedient is described as 
 entirely successful. 
 
118 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 “ I have never seen any drilled wheat so much 
 spoiled by falling, as sown wheat sometimes is. 
 The drilled never falls so close to the ground, hut 
 that the air enters into hollows that are under it, 
 and the wind keeps the ears in motion. Notwith- 
 standing all the precaution that can be used, in 
 some unseasonable years wheat will be blighted. 
 I have known such a general blight, when some 
 of my Lammas wheat, planted late and on blight- 
 ing land, was blighted amongst the rest of my 
 neighbours’, by the insects ; but the grain of the 
 sowed wheat was vastly more injured than that 
 of the drilled : the former was so light, that the 
 greatest part was blown away in winnowing, and 
 the remainder so bad, that it was not fit to make 
 bread : the drilled, made as good bread, and had 
 as much flour in it, as the sown wheat had, that 
 was not blighted ; for the grains of the drilled were 
 much larger than those of the sown ; being formed 
 to have been twice as big as the grains of wheat 
 generally are, had they not been blighted.” 
 
 § 4 . The Hand-hoeing Operations. 
 
 These, as may be anticipated, were for the joint 
 purpose of cleansing the interspaces between the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 H9 
 
 rows from weeds, and of breaking up that incrust- 
 ation which at all times is apt to form itself on 
 the surface of long- unstirred soil, thereby exclud- 
 ing atmospheric permeation. 
 
 “ This hand-hoeing should be performed about 
 the end of March or beginning of April, before 
 the wheat is spindled (i. e., run up to stalks) and, 
 if the weather be dry enough, you may go length- 
 ways of the ridges with a very light roller to break 
 the clods of the partitions,* whereby the hoe will 
 work the better. 
 
 “ If there should, afterwards, more weeds come 
 up, they must not be suffered to ripen ; and then 
 the soil will be every year freer from weeds. 
 
 “ This liand-hoeing of the rows should be done 
 at the proper time, though it happen, by late 
 planting, that the horse-hoe has not gone before 
 it ; for it may be, that the weather has kept out 
 the horse-hoe ; and the earth may not be dry 
 deep enough in the intervals for the hoe-plough, 
 but deep enough in the partitions for the hand- 
 hoe. 
 
 “And the expense of this hand- work on the rows 
 
 * This expedient also has been followed at Lois Weedon, 
 with success, in preventing falling through weight. 
 
120 
 
 THE PUINCIPLES OF 
 
 would be well answered, though there should not 
 be one weed in them ; and so it would be, if a 
 second hand-hoeing were bestowed on the parti- 
 tions of every crop of wheat not suspected of 
 being too luxuriant. 
 
 “ If, after the last horse-hoeing, there should be 
 occasion for another hoeing of the intervals, where 
 the narrowness of them, and the leaning of tall 
 wheat, make it difficult or dangerous to be per- 
 formed by the hoe-plough, a slight shallow hoeing 
 may be performed therein by the hand-hoe with 
 ease and safety, at a very small expense, which 
 wmuld be more than doubly repaid in the following 
 crops. 
 
 “ 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.” For treble rows, the hoers “use 
 hoes of four inches in breadth, very thin and well 
 steeled ; their thinness keeps them from wearing 
 to a thick edge, and prevents the necessity of 
 
TILUAGK AND MANURING. 
 
 121 
 
 often grinding them. Such hoes are in use with 
 some gardeners near London. They need not be 
 afraid of drawing these little hoes across the rows 
 of young wheat, to take out the few weeds that 
 come therein at the early hoeing ; for, whilst the 
 wheat-plants are small, it may be an advantage to 
 cut out some of the weakest, as they do of turnips ; 
 for I perceive there are oftener too many plants 
 than too few,” 
 
 § 5. Of Reapiny. 
 
 “ Reaping this wheat” \i. e., horse-hoed wheat] 
 “ is not worth ” [i.e., does not cost] “ above half 
 as much as the reaping of a sown crop of equal 
 value ; because the drilled standing upon about a 
 sixth part of the ground, a reaper may cut almost 
 as much of the row at one stroke, as he could six, 
 if the same stood dispersed all over the ground, as 
 the sowed does. And because he who reaps sowed 
 wheat, must reap the weeds along with the wheat ; 
 but the drilled has no weeds ; and besides, there 
 goes a greater quantity of straw, and more sheaves, 
 to a bushel of the sowed, than of the drilled. 
 
 “ One sheaf of the latter will yield more wheat 
 than two of the former, of equal diameter. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES 0 1' 
 
 122 
 
 § G. Of preparing the Stubbles for the next Crop. 
 
 On entering on this section we would remind 
 the reader, first : that what we are describing are 
 processes of unintermittent or successive corn 
 culture ; and, secondly : that, during the entire 
 summer, the bare fallow spaces have been receiv- 
 ing a thorough tillage, highly favourable to the 
 fecundity of the adjoining corn rows ; and it will 
 now, at a glance, be perceived, how singularly 
 beautiful is the subservience, also, of the summer 
 working, to the preparation of a finely mellowed 
 seed bed for the succeeding crop; and we shall 
 now proceed to give Tull’s directions for preparing 
 the stubbles for the next sowing. “As soon as 
 conveniently you can, after the crop of wheat is 
 carried off, if the trench in the middle of each 
 wide interval be left deep enough by the last 
 horse-hoeing [ i . e ., if the balk between each two 
 adjacent fallow spaces was completely cleared of 
 soil, by that final horse-hoeing operation, which 
 banked up the summer worked soil on the ripen- 
 ing corn] go as near as you can to the stubble 
 with a common plough, and turn two large furrows 
 into the middle of the interval, [balk] which will 
 make a ridge over the place where the trench 
 [balk] was ; but if the trench be not deep enough,’ 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 123 
 
 [i. e., was not bared to the subsoil; “ go first into 
 the middle of it with one fui row, which, with two 
 more taken from the ridges,” [i. e., one from each 
 adjoining ridge] “ will be three furrows in each 
 interval. It is the depth and fineness of this 
 ridge, that the success of our crop depends on, the 
 plants having nothing else to maintain them, 
 during the first six months ; and if, for want of 
 sustenance, they are weak in the spring, it will be 
 more difficult to make them recover their strength 
 afterwards, so fully as to bring them to their due 
 perfection.” “ Continue” adds Tull “this plough- 
 ing” [i. e. the forming of the seed bed,] “ as long 
 as the dry iveather lasts, and then finish by turning 
 the partitions whereon the last wheat grew, up to 
 the new ridges, which is usually done at two great 
 furrows. You may plough these last furrows, which 
 complete the (new) ridges in wet weather, — but, the 
 two furrows of every ridge whereon the rows are 
 to be drilled, we plough dry ; and if the weather 
 prove wet before these are all finished, we can 
 plough the other two furrows up to them, until it 
 be dry enough to return to our ploughing the first 
 two furrows; and after finishing them, let the 
 weather be wet or dry, we can plough the last two 
 furrows. 
 
124 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 “ In making ridges for wheat after wheat, 
 you must raise them to their full height, before 
 you plough the old partitions, with their stubble, 
 up to them ; for if you go about to make the 
 ridges higher afterwards, the stubble will so mix 
 with the mould of their tops, that it may not only 
 be a hindrance to the drill, but also to the first 
 hoeing; because if the hoe-plough goes as near 
 to the rows as it ought, it would be apt to tear out 
 the wheat-plants along with the stubble. 
 
 “ It is not best to plough the stubble up to the 
 ridges, until just before planting, (especially in the 
 early ploughing), because that will hinder the re- 
 plougliing of the first furrows, which, if the season 
 continues dry, may be necessary : sometimes we 
 do this by opening one furrow in the middle of the 
 ridge, sometimes two, and afterwards raise up the 
 ridges again ; and when they are become moist 
 enough at top (the old partitions being ploughed 
 up to them), we harrow them once (and that only 
 lengthways) and then drill them.” 
 
 Although, however, the soil of the fallow spaces 
 might be feered into the new seed bed, over the 
 entire farm, before the stubble space was hented, 
 it remained unfit, until that latter operation 
 either wholly or field by field was completed, for 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 125 
 
 the subsequent harrowing and drilling; because 
 without the backing of the more tenacious stubble 
 slices, the fine mould of the seed beds would in the 
 harrowing be levelled down ; but thus supported, 
 “ we harrow them once, and then drill them.” 
 
 “ But if once be not sufficient to level the tops of 
 the ridges fit for the drill to pass thereon, as it 
 always will, unless the two last hard [stubble] fur- 
 rows lie so high that all the shares of the drill 
 cannot reach to make their channels, and in this 
 case you must harrow again until they can all reach 
 deep enough. 
 
 “ Our ridges, after the first time of ploughing, 
 excel common ridges of the same height ; because 
 these, though as deep in mould at the tops, have 
 little of it tilled at the last ploughing; but ours, 
 being made upon the open trenches, consist of 
 new-tilled pulverized mould, from top to bottom. 
 
 “ If the feerings whereon the next crop is to 
 stand,” [i.e. the new seed bed] “ be ploughed dry, 
 we may drill it at any time during the common 
 and usual wheat seed time, that is proper for the 
 sort of wheat to be drilled, and the sort of land : 
 whether that be early or late, we may drill earlier, 
 but not later than the sowing farmers. But I have 
 had good crops of wheat drilled at all times betwixt 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 126 
 
 harvest and the beginning of November.” Again ; 
 “ we not only plough a deep furrow, but also plough 
 to the depth of two furrows ; that is, we trench- 
 plough where the land will alloio it ; and we have 
 the greatest convenience imaginable for doing this, 
 because there are two of our four furrows always 
 lying open ; and two ploughed furrows (that is one 
 ploughed under another) aie as much more advan- 
 tageous for the nourishing a crop, as two 
 bushels of oats are better than one for nourishing 
 a horse. Or if the staple of the land be too thin 
 or shallow, we can help it by raising the ridges 
 prepared for the rows the higher above the level. 
 
 “ Very little of my land will admit the plough to 
 go the depth of two common furrows without 
 reaching the chalk ; hut deep land may he easily 
 thus trench-ploughed with great advantage ; and 
 even when there is only the depth of a single 
 furrow, that may sometimes be advantageously 
 ploughed at twice.” 
 
 And now that we have completed our epitome 
 of Tullian culture, we would dwell for a moment, 
 on two most important circumstances belonging 
 to that mode of Tillage, namely, 1st — the small 
 amount of time and work required to prepare a great 
 breadth of land for seed; for, says he, “ 
 
 we can 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 127 
 
 plough our two furrows [composing the seed bedj in 
 the fourth part of the time they [the old husbandry 
 farmers] can plough their eight, which they must 
 plough dry, all of them, on every six feet ; for they 
 cannot plough part dry and the rest when it is 
 wet, as we can.” 
 
 The 2nd circumstance is — its general economy 
 of labour. Thus, for instance, each prior operation 
 is in harmony with and even promotive of that 
 which is to follow it. The earth removed by 
 gathering , to form the open balk, by the same 
 action, deepens the staple of the ridge by a 
 fourth or third part, (according as six feet or 
 four feet eight inch ridges are used), while the 
 open balk itself permits the alternate movement of 
 the earth of the fallow spaces, and then becomes 
 the appropriate site of next year’s seed bed. The 
 summer fallow workings not only promote the 
 fertility of the adjacent corn rows in their various 
 stages of growth and maturation, and prepare the 
 soil lor the ensuing crop, but wage a war of com- 
 plete extermination with every thing of the nature 
 of weed. The same open spaces which give room for 
 interculture, also promote the freest possible circu- 
 lation of air and accession of heat and light as res- 
 pects both the soil and the growing plants. The 
 
128 
 
 THE PBINCIPLES OF 
 
 horses walking on the balks avoid the injurious 
 pressure of their weight on the loosened mould. 
 No grass divisions, beat hard by the feet of 
 animals, give rise to the laborious tillage of 
 breaking up leys ; while, finally, no dunging in 
 spring, and carting of root crops in winter, undo 
 by poaching, the tilth of the previous fallow 
 operations. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 139 
 
 CHAPTER X.— WHAT THE REMUNERATIVE SUCCESS OF 
 TULL’S FARMING. 
 
 1, Of His Success. — This Testified at the Time by the Public 
 Voice. — The Evidence of his Book on the Subject. — Arthur 
 Young’s Conclusive Testimony on this subject. — § 2, Why Tull’s 
 Principle of Tillage a Substitute for Manure was never introduced 
 into Corn Husbandry. — This Owing partly to Prejudice. — But 
 chiefly to the then Opposing Advantages of Alternate Husbandry. 
 — § 3, The Original Reasons for Alternate Husbandry, now much 
 modified. — Tillage Implements immensely Improved. — Extre- 
 neous Manures must induce a change of Cultural Practice. 
 
 § 1. What the Renumerative Success of Tull's own Farming ? 
 
 On this subject Tull’s work contains no direct 
 evidence.* But, however interesting it would he 
 to peruse his barn accounts, were they extant, the 
 absence of any specific information in the volume, 
 on this subject, exposes its narrative to no 
 suspicion of concealment of unsuccessful results ; 
 because, in truth, the book itself was the offspring 
 of a foregone conclusion of success, known of 
 
 * It has been seen at p. 37, that the notes of his experi- 
 mental admeasurements, and weighings, intended for publi- 
 cation, were lost in preparing for the press. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 many famous witnesses who sought its publication, 
 hot to scan the particulars of his harvest returns, 
 but, to be taught the way by which that fertility 
 of his corn fields, seen and acknowledged by all 
 the world, had been attained. 
 
 That, on the whole, he raised much better crops 
 than did his neighbours, farming on the old 
 system, is consonant with every ingredient of 
 internal evidence contained in his statements ; 
 these, moreover, being characterized by a valorous 
 and frank tone of expression, every way signifi- 
 cant of entire candour and truthfulness. Again ; 
 how inconceivable it is, that this sorely afflicted 
 invalid, even with all his indomitable energy, 
 would for several years prior to his death, have 
 extended his intercultural and unintermittent 
 corn growing to considerably upwards of one 
 hundred acres of wheat of a season, had he not 
 fully proved its profitableness. 
 
 Exposed, too, as he must have been during the 
 earlier years of his new system to extraordinary 
 practical difficulties, and much unremunerative 
 outlay in trials, the natural presumption might 
 have been, that he could hardly have avoided 
 impairing his fortune ; and such, accordingly, was 
 one of the malevolent aspersions which the Book- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 131 
 
 sellers’ hirelings of the day circulated of him. 
 Not denying his success in harvest results, these 
 anonymous writers first attributed it to the falsely 
 alleged richness of his land; and then, said they 
 next, At least he has “ drilled away ” his inheri- 
 tance ! To this, he replied in the following 
 dignified language : — 
 
 “ These latent authors must be very conceited 
 of their own penetration, if they pretend to know 
 my affairs better than I do ; and if I know them, 
 I have been so far from spending an estate in any 
 manner, that my circumstances are now better 
 than when I first set out in the world, notwith- 
 standing many uncommon and inevitable misfor- 
 tunes of divers kinds that have befallen me; 
 amongst which, the loss of health, obliging me to 
 quit the profession to which I was bred, and to 
 travel for saving my life, may be reckoned. 
 
 “ It is to the new husbandry that I owe the 
 property of my farm, and all that I here have 
 said I can make appear to any gentleman, whose 
 curiosity shall induce him to inquire of me, to 
 find the truth for his satisfaction. My estate is 
 not so large as to leave an overplus for acquiring 
 another, after the expenses of maintaining me in 
 the manner 1 have been accustomed to live. I 
 
132 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 propose no more than to keep out of debt, and 
 leave my estate behind me, better than I found it ; 
 which, unless some new accident prevent, I shall 
 perform ; though generally the first inventor of a 
 project is a loser. But my scheme diminishes 
 the usual expense so much, that one who under- 
 stands it can scarce be in danger of losing by it ; 
 yet, owned it must be, that had I, when I first 
 began to make trials, known as much of it as I 
 do now, or as the diligent reader of my Essay and 
 this Appendix may, the practice of it would have 
 been more profitable to me.”* 
 
 In a succeeding chapter it will be seen, that no 
 inconsiderable reflected light, suggestive of even 
 a high amount of productive success in Tull's 
 farming, is derivable from the well-ascertained 
 
 * In 1794, Arthur Young visited Prosperous Farm, (then 
 belonging to a gentleman who had bought it from Tull’s son, 
 after his father’s death) and made careful enquiry, of those 
 who personally knew Tull, regarding the reputed ill success, 
 pecuniarily, of his farming ; and thus Young wrote on the 
 subject : — “ As Tull had been reproached, by the writers on 
 his works, with drilling away his fortune, I was anxious to 
 enquire what the fact was, and had the pleasure to find that 
 the imputation was without foundation .”- — Annals of Agri- 
 culture, Vol. 23, p. 173. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 133 
 
 details of that experimental reproduction of his 
 system, which has become so well known at Lois 
 Weedon. 
 
 § 2. How Tull's system of Interculture, although generally 
 adopted in the culture of Fallow crops, has not hitherto 
 been introduced into Corn Farming. 
 
 On entering on this subject, it is in the hrst 
 place to be remembered, that the adoption of roots 
 into English farming, and the substitution of them 
 and of pulse as cleansing ciops in place of the 
 bare fallow, were in a great degree coincident with 
 the promulgation of Tull’s liorse-hoeing method. 
 Again, those who have studied the progress of agri- 
 cultural improvement in manipulative procedure, 
 will readily conceive, that the same race of farmers, 
 who, in commencing for the first time the ex- 
 pedient of fallow cropping, would be as willing to 
 go by Tull’s rules in that branch of culture, as any 
 other, might nevertheless spurn the idea of sub- 
 jecting their corn crops to a management, which, 
 like Tull’s intercultural system, was so completely 
 at variance with their already rooted habits and 
 prejudices in cereal husbandry. Accordingly, that 
 a bigotted opposition of this kind actually pre- 
 
134 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 vailed is very certain ; and thus Tull himself 
 graphically relates it in the following quotation. 
 “Whatever accident,” he writes, “even from the 
 heavens — as lightning, tempest, a wet harvest, or 
 from cattle, or the like — happens to drilled corn, 
 it is sure to be imputed to the drilling, though 
 sown corn be as much or more damaged by it.” 
 
 Even the enlightened Arthur Young, himself, 
 was not above the prejudices of the day against 
 the New Husbandry, as we have already seen Tull’s 
 system came to be called ; supporting his oppo- 
 sition on the following among other futile or 
 ephemeral grounds. He prophesied (how untruly, 
 subsequent events have since shewn) that both 
 the thin sowing and the drilling of com would 
 increase the prevalence of mildew. Absolutely 
 denouncing all manner of interculture in the 
 growing corn, he even doubted the advantage of 
 drilling the roots, or the use of any instrument 
 amongst them in their growth, save the hand-hoe. 
 He dogmatically asserted that any system of corn 
 culture without dung must needs be a delusion. 
 He opposed horse-hoeing, because it was imprac- 
 ticable in wet land, requiring to be water furred, 
 not reflecting that draining was the appropriate 
 remedy for this objection. No system of tillage, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING 
 
 135 
 
 he argued, inconsistent with Alternate Husbandry 
 (of which he was the great advocate) was rational, 
 or could be otherwise than unprofitable; and he 
 laboriously urged that whatsoever mode of corn 
 farming, which, like Tull’s, engrossed a part of 
 the farmer’s attention between seed time and har- 
 vest (thistling excepted !) was inconsistent with 
 any practicable routine of management. By this 
 time Tull had been dead nearly thirty years, leav- 
 ing his mantle behind him on no one ; and thus 
 from the unopposed, as well as perspicuous and 
 indefatigable pen of Arthur Young, arguments 
 like these, tending to rivet more firmly the ancient 
 notions of corn tillage, received very willing and 
 general acceptation. Accordingly, in process of 
 time, Tull’s teaching in that branch of agriculture 
 was completely overborne. That Young lived 
 long enough to see cause for retracting most of 
 his objections to Tullian practice in general hus- 
 bandry, will afterwards be shewn ; but undoubtedly 
 his writings are the main source of that tradition 
 respecting Tull prevalent amongst the agricultural 
 community of the present day — namely, not that in 
 point of fact he taught them how to seed and chill 
 their corn fields, and how to till their fallow crops, 
 as they are at this day sown, drilled, and tilled, 
 
136 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 but as that speculative enthusiast who originated 
 the idea that corn could be grown unintermittently 
 without degeneration, and unmanuredly without 
 sterility. 
 
 But although Young’s objections to Tull’s 
 methods of cultural manipulation have been com- 
 pletely overruled by modern practice, it is impos- 
 sible, so far as respects his advocacy of Alternate 
 Husbandry, not to attribute to it the most im- 
 portant benefits to English agriculture, or not 
 to acknowledge that its successful opposition, for 
 the time, to Tull’s system of corn growing — bread 
 cast on the waters to return again after many days , — 
 was greatly for the national advantage. 
 
 This will shortly be treated of in the next 
 section. 
 
 § 3 . Of the original reasons for Alternate Husbandry , and of 
 their now greatly modified cogency. 
 
 A strong motive for lessening the proportion of 
 corn growing on farms, as practised under the 
 Old Husbandly, (and which the interposing of 
 green crops enabled the farmer to accomplish), 
 existed in the then great defects of the Tithe 
 system, now happily placed on a footing, no longer 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 137 
 
 at variance with a renewed extension of cereal 
 cultivation. 
 
 But chiefly it is to be remembered, that at the 
 time Arthur Young was successfully disseminating 
 his doctrines of Alternate Husbandry, the condi- 
 tion of landed property throughout England was 
 such, that not within the entire kingdom did 
 there probably exist a single farm approaching 
 even the condition of thorough improvement, in- 
 somuch that wheresoever the eye now ranges 
 with delight over districts composed of well pro- 
 portioned, well inclosed, and well drained tillage 
 or pasture fields, their prevailing characteristics, at 
 the period in question, were those of either 
 neglected wastes, or ill-arranged and uninclosed 
 patches of cultivation, most frequently in inter- 
 commonable occupancy. 
 
 Now that the subsequent reclamation of the 
 national husbandry from these fundamental defects 
 of the old system was the work of various indus- 
 trial agencies, is very certain. At the same 
 time, in so far as the amelioration of the soil 
 itself progressed hand in hand with the other 
 branches of improvement, it is unquestionable, that 
 the specific benefits belonging to Alternate Hus- 
 bandry in its improved intercultural tillage of the 
 
138 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES Of 
 
 fallow crops, and in its increased supply of cattle 
 court manure, must have been of most essential 
 importance. 
 
 But, is it an unavoidable necessity, that the 
 same modes of husbandry, proper to such a con- 
 dition of farming as we have been adverting to, 
 shall still be perpetuated in those leading tillage 
 districts already subjected to thorough improve- 
 ment ? Are the agricultural resources and polity 
 of the corn counties of England, the same, at the 
 present day, as when rotations were first introduced 
 into Norfolk, or borrowed, from thence, by the 
 other eastern divisions of the kingdom ? Grant- 
 ing that the unskilled labour, and imperfect tillage 
 mechanism of the last century, and earlier part of 
 the present, were insuperable barriers to the 
 extension of Tullian interculture to the corn 
 crops ; are not these obstacles now removed ? 
 Granting that the manufacture of cattle court 
 manure, was formerly an indispensable expedient 
 on every corn farm, who will assert that in this, 
 the age of extraneous fertilizers, it longer is so ? 
 If, under the alternate system, the clover plant 
 has sickened, and the turnip acquires its unnatural 
 bulk, only to become a mass of corruption ; if, 
 finally, under this husbandry, even cereal vegeta- 
 tion is exhibiting unequivocal symptoms of deteri- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 139 
 
 oration,* surely the time has arrived when both 
 the owner and occupier of improved tillage 
 property should remember, that the device of 
 alternating cattle crops with corn, was a mere 
 graft on a prior unalternate cereal system, of 
 which the history, from remote times, was that of 
 increasing prosperity, and which now, with greater 
 or less modification, could again be resumed, 
 under circumstances inexpressibly more favourable 
 to success, than when it formerly was the national 
 tillage husbandry of England. 
 
 In concluding this chapter, we would, however, 
 earnestly direct the reader’s reflections to the 
 following quotation: “ The profit or loss,” reasons 
 Tull, “ arising from land, is not to be computed 
 only from the value of the crop it produces, but 
 from its value after all expenses of seed, tillage, 
 &c., are deducted;” a maxim which the unthinking 
 may regard as a mere truism, but of rare signifi- 
 cance in testing and estimating, as will afterwards 
 be done in the next chapter, the economic and 
 profitable merits of Tullian compared with 
 Alternate Farming. 
 
 * See extracts from a discussion in the Central Farmers’ 
 Club, on the question “ What system of cultivation, upon 
 mixed soils, will, under present circumstances, be found 
 most profitable ? ” Appendix, No. II. 
 
140 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 CHAPTER XL— OF INSTANCES SUBSEQUENT TO TULL’S 
 OF INTERCULTURAL SUCCESSIVE CORN HUSBAN- 
 DRY WITHOUT MANURE. 
 
 Lois Weedon instance. — In every respect Tullian in principle. — The 
 Work on “ Lois Weedon Husbandry” quoted. — The Narrative of 
 it, and TuU’s Book on the Subject of Acreable Produce compared. 
 — Their mutual similarity.- — -Eight other Experimental Instances, 
 tabulated. 
 
 Of the instances in successive corn growing, 
 subsequent to Tull’s, the most noted one is the 
 Rev. T. Smith’s adaptation of the system at 
 Lois Weedon. 
 
 His plan is as follows : he divides his field into 
 lands five feet wide, and in the centre of each he 
 drops or drills the seed in triple rows, one foot 
 apart, thus leaving a fallow interval of three feet 
 between each triple row ; when the plant is up, 
 the intervals are trenched with the spade or fork, 
 taking the spits about three inches from the 
 wheat ; and at spring, and during summer, he 
 cleans them, and keeps them open with the horse- 
 hoe and scuffler. Every year, in short, he 
 trenches and cultivates two and a half feet out of 
 the five, for the succeeding crop, and leaves the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 141 
 
 other two and a half for that which is growing. 
 The next year the wheat is sown in these fallow 
 intervals, and the stubble is broken up in like 
 manner for the fallow process. Thus the ground 
 is freely opened to the action of the atmosphere : 
 and, to deepen the soil, the thickness of the 
 cultivated staple is very gradually increased, by 
 digging a few inches deeper each time, till, ulti- 
 mately, a depth of twenty-one inches of thoroughly 
 stirred earth is attained ; but the last four crops 
 have been grown (it is understood) on intervals 
 worked only half depth. 
 
 The first subject of Mr. Smith’s trial was a one 
 acre plot of good clay land, estimated at thirty- 
 two shillings of yearly rent, and naturally adapted 
 to wheat tillage. In the season of 1846, the 
 experiment commenced ; his first Tullian harvest 
 having been that of crop 1847, and yearly, from 
 that time to the present, it has borne successive 
 un manured wheat ; and this is the acre referred 
 to in the outset of the preface, as that which in 
 especial has attracted so large a share of public 
 interest. Resolving to increase the scope of his 
 experiment, m October 1850, Mr. Smith took in 
 hand other four acres, and to which, consisting 
 as it did of a gravelly soil, naturally unfitted 
 
142 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 for wheat growing, he gave adequate strength for 
 that purpose, by a most judiciously managed top 
 dressing of clay. 
 
 From both instances the yield has been at the 
 acreable rate of from thirty-four to thirty-five 
 bushels of marketable grain ; (see Table II.) and 
 altogether they are to be regarded as forming an 
 admirably conducted, and successful experiment, 
 confirmatory, as well as illustrative, of the 
 catholicity of Tull’s actual farming, on a twenty- 
 fold greater extent. 
 
 But, in no respect, does the Lois Weedon 
 experiment admit of any claim to originality, 
 although their estimable author would seem to 
 have thought them entitled to that distinction, 
 in several particulars. Let us, with all candour, 
 and with no disposition to detract from his well- 
 earned fame, examine these pretensions. 
 
 Conducted by the spade or fork, in place of the 
 plough, even that is not original, since spade work 
 is precisely what Tull himself recommended in 
 his instructions to experimenting disciples. But, 
 says this disciple, I claim as an originality, in that 
 while Tull forbids the plough to pass below the 
 staple, I boldly drive the fork to the depth of thir- 
 teen inches, and bring to the surface a yearly 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 143 
 
 modicum of fresh subsoil. What Tull really 
 warned against, however, was, the disturbance of 
 an unprofitable bottom, like his own chalk, or a 
 positively pernicious one, like many underclays 
 and gravels throughout the country ; and to say 
 that his writings contain a word of injunction 
 against deep cultivation to bring up a mellow 
 clay marl, such as the very ingenious experimenter 
 at Lois Weedon, has to deal with, is a complete 
 misconception. “ We trench plough,” Tull says, 
 “ where the land will allow it ; and two ploughed 
 furrows (that is, one ploughed under another), are 
 as much more advantageous for the nourishing a 
 crop, as two bushels of oats are better than one 
 for nourishing a horse.” 
 
 Again : the omission in Lois Weedon practice, 
 
 of what Tull to the last practised, namely, the 
 expedient of slicing a fur from the young wheat, 
 in early winter, is claimed as an originality. But 
 Tull made no absolute point of this operation, 
 for, he says, “if the wheat is planted very late, 
 it may not be hoeable before winter is past,” 
 thereby giving a discretionary license to practice 
 or omit the pre-winter hoeing, as experience 
 might dictate. 
 
 Smith. — “ I claim the originality of bringing 
 
144 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 up the subsoil, without injuring the plant, but, on 
 the contrary of giving shelter to it by the ridges of 
 each interval.” — Lois Weedon Husbandnj, p. 111. 
 
 Tull. — “ We also raise a high ridge in the 
 middle of each interval above the wheat, before 
 winter, to protect it from the cold winds, &c.” This 
 expedient, however, it may here be mentioned, 
 Tull ultimately abandoned when he ceased drilling 
 on the level, (which in his earlier practice he had 
 done) and took, finally, to ridges. “ I have for these 
 several years left off drilling on the level, and do 
 advise against it ; because, although mould should 
 not be wanting for the partition in deep rich land, 
 yet it is much more difficult to (horse) hoe on the 
 level than on ridges.” 
 
 Smith. — “ I claim the originality, as compared 
 with Tull, of narrowing the intervals, &c.” — Lois 
 Weedon, p. 112. 
 
 Tull. — “ I cannot prescribe precisely the most 
 proper width of all intervals, because they should 
 be different in different circumstances. In deep 
 rich land they may be a little narrower than in 
 shallow land.” 
 
 Thus, then, these, the only differences claimed 
 by the Rev. Mr. Smith as existing between his 
 method and that of his great teacher are shewn 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 145 
 
 to be destitute of any real distinction. It follows, 
 therefore, that as like causes will always produce 
 like effects, the respective published recitals of 
 the two instances may reasonably be expected 
 when placed, as shall now be done, in juxta- 
 position, to possess such frequent coincidences 
 and analogies as may reflect back, from the junior 
 to the elder testimony, more or less of interpretive 
 light, to enable us the better to form some specific 
 conception of what Tull’s returns may have been. 
 
 “ During winter,” writes Mr. Smith, of his own 
 experiment, “ and up to April, the plant looked so 
 thin and so very far between, as almost to excite 
 ridicule. The wheat, however, began then to mat 
 and to tiller. May came ; and all through that 
 trying month it kept its colour, without a tinge of 
 yellow. And now the well tilled intervals have 
 told upon the grain, which has swollen to a great 
 size. The compact ears are enormously heavy and 
 large. The reeddike straw has borne up against 
 the storms. And there, at this moment, as level 
 and as laughing as the slightly rippled sea, stands 
 as fine a crop of wheat as ever I beheld, promising 
 from the half portion of each acre, a yield of from 
 36 to 40 bushels .” — Royal Agricultural Journal, 
 Vol. xii, p. 134. 
 
 L 
 
140 
 
 THE FRINCIPEES OK 
 
 If, then, from four to five quarters an acre is the 
 well earned meed of Lois Weedon judgment and 
 skill, what less reward must have belonged to him 
 whose graver narrative runs thus : “ The horse- 
 hoed,” says Tull, “ shews the whole interval empty 
 until the grain is almost full, which is a great 
 advantage to the crop ; because, unless the air did 
 freely enter therein to strengthen the lower parts 
 of the stalks, they would not be able to support 
 such prodigious ears (some containing 112 large 
 grains a-piece) from falling on the ground. 
 
 “ When the grains are full, the ears turn their 
 upper ends downwards, and are all seen in the 
 intervals, and nothing but straw on the rows ; this 
 reverse posture of the ears defends them from the 
 injuries of wet weather when ripe ; for the rain is 
 carried off by their beard and chaff, which, like 
 tiles, protect the grain from being discoloured, as 
 sown wheat always is by much rain, when ripe. 
 
 “ This difference was fully shewn the last har- 
 vest, when all my wheat was in the same posture ; 
 none of the ears reached the ground, but some 
 reached within a foot, others within half a yard of 
 it, and some not so low ; none of the straws were 
 broken by the weight of those large ears, they 
 only bended round at the height of about a yard 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 117 
 
 or higher, in a manner that 1 never saw in any 
 other wheat but the horse-hoed. 
 
 “ In these intervals, notwithstanding this bend- 
 ing posture of the ears, one may walk backwards 
 and forwards without doing any damage ; for the 
 ears when thrust out of their places, will, by their 
 spring, return to them again like twigs in a coppice. 
 
 “ Imagination often deceives us, by arguments 
 false, or precarious ; but reason leads us to demon- 
 stration, by weights and measures. Yet this pre- 
 judice (i.e. that wheat standing in rows, with wide 
 intervals between them, may not seem to the eye 
 to equal a crop of half the bigness dispersed all over 
 the land) will vanish at harvest before weighing ; for 
 then all those wide intervals that were hare , will be 
 covered ivith large ears interfering to hide them quite, 
 and make a finer appearance than a sown crop. But 
 it is observed, that the cone-wheat makes the finest 
 show when you look on it lengthways of the rows, 
 both at harvest and a considerable time before 
 harvest. ”* 
 
 * “ Unquestionably,” writes Cobbett, “afield of Tullian 
 wheat in ear, with the ridges straight and the land clean, is 
 the most beautiful thing in the vegetable world. It is not 
 Wand, like the Indian corn ; but it is even more beautiful 
 than that. After three or four crops, there is very little 
 
148 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Smith. — “ I have now the fifth crop on the 
 same acre of unmanured land,” (the twelfth has 
 since been reaped) “ promising at least from the 
 half portion of the acre, the customary yield of 34 
 bushels : many place it is as high as 40.” — 
 Royal Agricultural Journal, Yol. xii, p. 135. 
 
 Tull. — “My field, whereon is now the thir- 
 teenth crop of wheat,” (but he had other fields at 
 the time, under the same treatment) “is likely to 
 be very good;” the previous crop having been, as 
 he elsewhere relates, the best that ever grew on 
 it. 
 
 Smith. — “The ten years average” (written in 
 1857) “from this moiety of the acre has been 34 
 bushels; a very high average on any plan from 
 a whole acre.” — Lois Weedon, p. 79. 
 
 Tull.— “The goodness of a crop consists in 
 the quality of it, as well as the quantity; and 
 wheat being the most useful grain, a crop of this 
 is better than a crop of any other corn ; and the 
 hoed wheat has larger ears and a fuller body than 
 sown wheat. • We do not pretend that we have 
 
 trouble from weeds or grass. The land is prepared for any 
 crop ; and it is bearing a good crop, while the preparation is 
 going on." — Cobbet.t’s Introduction to Tull, p. xvii. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 149 
 
 always greater crops, or so great, as some sown 
 crops are. The greatest produce I ever had from 
 a single yard in length, of a double row, was 
 eighteen ounces ; the partitions of this being six 
 inches, and the interval thirty inches, was, by com- 
 putation, ten quarters, or eighty bushels to an acre. 
 I had also twenty ounces to a like yard of a third 
 successive crop of wheat ; but this being a treble 
 row, and the partitions and interval being wider, 
 and supposed to be in all six feet, was computed 
 at six quarters to the acre.” 
 
 Smith. — “ I expect a similar crop, year after 
 year in the same four acres of land, treated in the 
 same way. I do so, because experience justifies 
 my expectation, and, as I conceive, science con- 
 firms it .” — Royal Agricultural Journal , Vol. xii, 
 p. 134. 
 
 Tull. — “ The more successive crops are planted 
 in wide intervals and often hoed, the better the 
 ground does maintain them. The last crop is 
 still the best, without dung or changing the sort 
 of plant.” 
 
 That Tull's average produce from the whole 
 120 acres which latterly he had under wheat of a 
 season, was not nearly equal to that which has 
 been instanced above is quite certain ; indeed, lie 
 
TH Li PRINCIPUiS OP 
 
 150 
 
 frankly records several failures attributable to bis 
 inability, in winter, himself to supervise the field 
 operations. Nevertheless, in Lois Weedon success, 
 we doubtless have a faithful picture in little of 
 those harvests at Prosperous, which, unsought of 
 him who tilled them, blazoned abroad his agri- 
 cultural triumphs through every corner of the 
 empire. 
 
 It has, indeed, pleased the disciple, writing of 
 his venerable master, to remark that, “ from a few 
 scattered intimations here and there, and from the 
 early editions of his (Tull’s) work, published in and 
 about his time, we may gather that his general 
 produce per acre was about two quarters.” — Word 
 in Season , 15th edition, p. 36. — This is not the 
 language of accurate, reliable, or (shall we venture 
 to say) impartial inquiry ; and assuming Cobbett’s 
 edition of Tull’s volume to be a faithful transcript 
 of the original text, this disloyal underrating of 
 the great teacher’s practical success is contro- 
 verted by one continuous train of internal evidence 
 to the contrary. But probably the following piece 
 of external contemporary testimony will not be 
 unacceptable to the reader. In the Museum 
 Rusticum of 1765, there is to be found an able 
 contribution, bearing to have been written partly 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 151 
 
 from the study of Tull’s writings, and partly from 
 intimate intercourse with a contemporary and 
 personal acquaintance of Tull — namely, the experi- 
 menter No. 2 of the following Table I ; and in this 
 paper the average of Tull’s last wheat crop 
 (upwards of 100 acres in extent), is estimated at 
 nearly 20 bushels of 9 gallons per bushel, equal 
 to 22j bushels imperial. But ere this, the final 
 year of Tull's farming, his infirmities had, as the 
 writer justly remarked, prevented his giving any- 
 thing like adequate superintendence to the man- 
 agement of his farm, and accordingly, the article 
 is evidently written under the persuasion that 
 Tull’s prior returns were considerably greater. — 
 Museum Busticum, vol. iii. pp. 159, 341 ; vol. iv. 
 
 p. 81. 
 
 An able writer, in the Agricultural Gazette, of 
 January 5, 1850, concludes, “ that Tull annually 
 grew above three quarters of wheat to the acre," 
 and this quantity has been adopted in the follow- 
 ing tables, as being incontestibly within the mark. 
 
 The other ascertained instances of Tullian corn 
 culture, are epitomized in the following table. 
 
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 Average of the first 5£ crops. Average of the 2nd 5£ years crops. 
 
 Average of the whole, 33 bushels. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 155 
 
 Thus, then, an examination of this Table will 
 shew, that Tull’s assertion that his own soil in- 
 creased in productiveness, and, that generally, 
 thorough tillage is competent to sustain uninter- 
 mittent and undiminishing corn cropping unaided 
 by manure, is fully corroborated by these experi- 
 ments independently conducted at various times, 
 in various localities, and on very various soils. 
 
 The yearly acreable expenses of growing 
 Tullian wheat are given in the following table : 
 
 TABLE III. 
 
 Shewing the Expense of Tullian Plough Cultivation foe 
 Wheat. 
 
 ITEMS OF EXPENSE. 
 
 Tull, 
 
 1735. 
 
 Mr. Dean. 
 
 Mr. Close 
 1785. 
 
 Mr. Clarke 
 1858. 
 
 
 1 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 S. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Ploughing anil other charges 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 up to and including sowing . . 
 
 0 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 0 3 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 10 
 
 0 
 
 Cost of Seed 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 U 3 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 3 
 
 H 
 
 0 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 Hoeing and other tillage ex- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 penses subsequent to sow- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 ing 
 
 0 
 
 -t 
 
 8 
 
 0 5 
 
 8 
 
 0 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 () 
 
 0 
 
 Heaping and other expenses 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 up to and including market- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ing 
 
 0 
 
 12 
 
 81 
 
 0 12 
 
 81 
 
 0 
 
 15 
 
 91 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 0 
 
 Rent, tithe and rates 
 
 0 
 
 15 
 
 0 
 
 0 15 
 
 0 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 0 
 
 
 1 
 
 19 
 
 01 
 
 1 19 
 
 91 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 Now, various in amount as are these charges, 
 there is no difficulty in reconciling them when 
 the well known gradual increase in the cost of 
 
1 5 G 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 labour, which occurred in the course of the last 
 123 years, is taken into account; and when also, 
 as respects Mr. Clarke’s instance in particular, it 
 is had in view that the larger expenses of reap- 
 ing, fee., there stated, are occasioned by a more 
 than average rate of produce, and the larger sum 
 of rent, fee. by a more than average quality of 
 soil. Accordingly, in adopting that instance as a 
 criterion of the acreable expenses of Tullian 
 wheat culture by the plough in the present day, 
 a deduction shall be made (in order to reduce it 
 to an average) of 6s. from the expenses of reap- 
 ing, and of 17s. from the rent; thus lessening the 
 sum total to .£4 11s. 3d. 
 
 If, then, the average produce of Tullian cul- 
 ture by the plough be taken at 24 b. 3 p. of 
 marketable corn (see Table I.) and converted into 
 money at the Tithe average rate of 7s. per Bushel* 
 the yearly gross produce in money 
 
 (exclusive of straw) is £8 13 3 
 
 And deducting from this sum the ex- 
 penses as estimated above ... 4 11 3 
 
 The nett profit over and above the 
 marketable value of the straw is - - £4 2 0 
 
 * The same rate of conversion will be used in the sequel, 
 in all similar calculations. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 157 
 
 TABLE IV. 
 
 The following calculations are based on the estimated 
 acreable out-goings, in-comings, and ultimate profits (given 
 in Bayldon’s Work on Rents and Tillages, Baker’s Edition, 
 1856,) of good Turnip soils in the Eastern counties managed 
 in an ordinary four-course rotation, and assumed to be 
 worth 31s. 6d. of Rent ; — -the object in citing this authority 
 being to form a criterion, although, perhaps, a severe one, 
 by which to try the comparative profitable merits of Tullian 
 and Alternate Husbandry. 
 
 CHARGES. 
 
 £ S. D. 
 
 1. Expenses of Turnip Division, in- 
 
 cluding Rent Tithe and Rates 11 3 10 
 
 2. ,, of Barley Division 5 2 7 
 
 3. „ „ Clover „ 3 19 10 
 
 4. „ „ Wheat 6 19 10 
 
 4 ) £27 6 I 
 
 Yearly expense £6 16 6 
 
 RETURNS. 
 
 1. Turnips valued at £4 0 0 
 
 2. Barley 40 bus. at 4/ £8 Straw 
 
 14/6 8 14 6 
 
 3. Clover 7 6 6 
 
 4. Wheat 32 bus. at 7/ £11 4s. 
 
 Straw 19/6 12 3 6 
 
 4 ) £32 4 6 
 
 Value of yearly returns... £8 11 
 
 Free balance to meet interest on capital, 
 pi'ofessional remuneration, and risks on 
 
 live stock 1 5 3 
 
 Brofit of Tullian Husbandry (see last page) ... 4 2 0 
 
 Superior profitableness of Tullian Husbandry 
 
 per acre £2 16 9 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OK 
 
 loa 
 
 TABLE Y. 
 
 CONTAINS AN ILLUSTRATION DRAWN FROM TABLES 
 I. AND IV. 
 
 The Schedule of particulars given by Bayldon of the expenses 
 of working the Turnip division, contains the following- 
 
 items : — £ s. n. 
 
 Labour filling manure 0 2 0 
 
 Spreading same 0 1 (j 
 
 Manure and previous labour thereon 3 10 0 
 
 Horse and one man carting same 0 4 6 
 
 Lime, &c 0 12 0 
 
 £4 10 0 
 
 And amongst the expenses of the Wheat division 
 
 is ; — Top Dressing in Spring 1 3 0 
 
 4) 5 13 6 
 
 Expenses of Manures, divided into an aunual sum £18 5 
 
 Now, we have seen, in Table I., that Tullian cul- n. p. 
 ture, without manure, can on an average of 
 instances produce a yearly yield of 24 3 
 
 Assuming next, that Tullian tillage were supple- 
 mented yearly by 28s. 5d. worth of Guano, i.e. 
 
 21 cwt. ; this, according to the usual estimate of 
 the productive power of that manure, would 
 presumably add 4 bus. per cwt. to the acreable 
 product weight, making 9 1 
 
 Total Bus. 34 0 
 
 Which, converted into money at 7s. per Bushel, 
 
 gives 
 
 
 
 
 £11 
 
 18 
 
 0 
 
 DEDUCT : 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 
 Tullian expenses, as before 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 Outlay on Guano 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 19 
 
 8 
 
 Estimated Profit per acre of Tullian 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tillage, supplemented by Guano 
 
 
 
 
 ..£5 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
TILLAGE AND MANUEING. 
 
 159 
 
 Such, then, is the existing evidence in favour 
 of the great comparative industrial economy, and 
 consequent very remunerative results of Tullian 
 husbandry, conducted by the plough. 
 
 Finally, by the spade or fork the comparative 
 amount of Cost and Return is as follows : 
 
 TABLE VI. 
 
 By the Spade or Fork, the comparative Amount oe Cost and 
 Return is as follows : 
 
 Average produce as shown in Table 1., 33 bushels lpeck, 
 which converted into money gives 
 
 DEDUCT 
 
 Expenses up to and including 
 
 sowing 
 
 Cost of Seed 
 
 Expenses of tillage subsequent 
 
 to sowing 
 
 Reaping &c 
 
 Rent, &c 
 
 Sir George 
 Kobinson. 
 
 Mr. Smith. 
 
 Mi 
 
 . Jones. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ S. 
 
 d. 
 
 A 
 
 S. 
 
 d. 
 
 \ 
 
 
 1 5 
 
 0 
 
 1 
 
 16 
 
 0 
 
 [5 5 
 
 0 
 
 0 4 
 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 
 0 12 
 
 0 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 1 13 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 3 0 
 
 0 
 
 2 6 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 A' s. d. 
 11 14 0 
 
 7 6 8 
 6 0 4J 
 
 8 5 0 
 
 Nett Profits of Alternate Husbandry at Table IV 
 
 3) 
 
 21 
 
 12 Oi 
 
 7 4 0 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 4 10 6 
 
 15 3 
 
 
 
 
 dry . . 
 
 ....£ 
 
 3 5 3 
 
160 
 
 Till'', PRINCIPLES HI' 
 
 The following Table of operative details explains 
 itself : 
 
 TABLE VII. 
 
 WITH THE PLOUGH. 
 
 Depth of 
 Cultivation. 
 
 Quantity of Seed 
 per Acre. 
 
 Number' of- 
 
 Rows. 
 
 Distance between 
 
 Row and Row. 
 
 Width of 
 
 Fallow Spaces. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Pecks. 
 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Jethro Tull 
 
 Comn. 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 46 
 
 Mr. Dean 
 
 Comn. 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 46 
 
 Mr. Close 
 
 Comn. 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 24 
 
 Mr. Clarke 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 40 
 
 WITH THE FORK OR 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 SPADE. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mr. Smith 
 
 10 to 21 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 36 
 
 Mr. Jones 
 
 ? 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 30 
 
 Sir George Robinson 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 36 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 161 
 
 The author, in concluding this chapter, desires 
 to express his respectful thanks to the Rev. 
 Sir George Robinson, Bart; J. A. Clarke, Esq., 
 of Long Sutton, Lincolnshire; and H. Jones, Esq., 
 of Lois Weedon ; for the information furnished by 
 them severally, and now embodied in the fore- 
 going tables. Other instances he also sought to 
 ascertain, but the information, kindly given, did 
 not apply ; and, in a few cases, he received no 
 answers to his enquiries. 
 
162 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES 01 
 
 CHAPTER XII.— OF THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS, 
 AND THEIR BEARING ON TULLIAN HUSBANDRY. 
 
 1, Certain characteristics of these experiments stated. — Conducted 
 irrespective of industrial profit. — The Cultural means employed 
 in them not recorded. — They throw no light either on the Theory 
 or Practice of Tillage. — Caird’s Observations on them quoted. 
 — They tend to prove that every soil has a tillage zero , 
 below which no mode of cropping can reduce its yearly yield. — 
 This Observation already anticipated by Tull. — The zero of 
 Rotbamsted Successive and Unmanured Corn Culture. — The zero 
 of Tullian Culture. — The productive results of the Rotbamsted 
 and Holkham experiments in Successive Unmanured and 
 Manured Corn Growing tabulated. — § 2. The Old Scottish Hus- 
 bandry cited . — 5 3, These Experiments disprove the Theory of 
 degeneration of species from Successive Culture. — This con- 
 clusion also anticipated by Tull. — § 4, Theory of Nitrogenous 
 Manuring. — Such Manuring competent with only ordinary Til- 
 lage to produce abundant , Successive Corn Crops. — But Nitro- 
 genous applications, in unfavourable seasons, conducive to 
 deranged functions in the plants. — This objection not applicable 
 to Tullian Culture. — Tull’s Practice cited by Professor Way on 
 this point. 
 
 § 1, The general characteristics of these experiments. 
 
 For the better explanation of the points to be 
 treated of in this chapter, certain well established 
 particulars of Physical Science will be premised 
 respecting the Atmosphere and the Soil in their 
 relations to the Phenomenon of Vegetation. 
 
 First, then, of the Atmosphere ; which may be 
 
TILLAGE AM* MANURING. 
 
 163 
 
 defined to be a vast pneumatic reservoir, com- 
 posed of elemental Nitrogen gas, and designed 
 for the purpose of containing, by means of the 
 gaseous property of Diffusion, an ever replenished 
 store of aerial substances concerned in the pro- 
 cesses of Vitality ; these being, so far as concerns 
 vegetative life — 1st. Oxygen , uncombined. 2ndly. 
 Oxygen and Hydrogen, combined in Aqueous 
 vapour. 3rdly. Oxygen and Carbon, in the com- 
 pound form of Carbonic acid gas. And, 4thly, 
 Two other substances, namely, Nitric Acid and 
 Ammonia, — these being, respectively, compounds 
 of Nitrogen and Oxygen, and of Nitrogen and 
 Hydrogen.* 
 
 * Nitric Acid in combination with other substances, 
 exists in nature in solid mineral forms, of more or less 
 abundance, such as Nitrate of Soda (Chili Saltpetre), Nitrate 
 of Potash (common Saltpetre), Nitrate of Lime, and Nitrate 
 of Magnesia; Ammonia is not a natural production, hut 
 artificially may be obtained from combination with other 
 substances, such as the Muriate , the Sulphate, and the 
 Carbonate of Ammonia. All these substances the intelligent 
 agriculturist will recognize as belonging to the class of 
 Special Manures; and as their value, as such, is usually 
 attributed to their nitrogenous basis, and as that basis may 
 upon good scientific grounds, be regarded as of atmospheric 
 origin, they shall accordingly, when spoken of in the sequel 
 
164 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 But, although this vast gaseous recipient is 
 always replete with the aereal constituents of 
 organic nature, it is also true, that one and all of 
 these undergo an incessant fluctuation of a kind 
 and to a degree which may not inaptly he typified 
 by the unceasing aqueous evaporation which goes 
 on from the surface of the earth, and its re-preci- 
 pitation thereon, in the condition of snow, rain, or 
 dew. For, how great soever may be the hourly, 
 daily, or yearly abstraction of atmospheric ele- 
 ments by plants and animals, and how intimate 
 soever their assimilation into organic conditions, 
 sooner or later it is the property of all of them to 
 regain ultimately, by decomposition, their aerial 
 freedom. 
 
 But further, in like manner as the nitrogen 
 of the air thus acts as a magazine for gaseous 
 
 as fertilisers, be called Atmospheric manures, in contra- 
 distinction to those other necessary nutriments of vegetation, 
 which, existing only in the solid or liquid portion of the 
 globe, and never, except accidently, in the air (such as 
 Silica, Potash, Lime, Sulphuric, and Phosphoric Acid, etc.) 
 shall be termed Terrestrial. Amongst Chemico-Physiologists, 
 the question has been much agitated, whether Nitrogen, in 
 its pure and uncombined state, is nutritious to vegetation ; 
 the preponderance of opinion being that, in this state, plants 
 are incapable of assimilating it. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 165 
 
 organic nutriments, so, also, do the solid and 
 liquid matters of the globe itself perform the part 
 of repositories for the terrestrial food of plants, 
 and, through plants, of animals ; and here, also, 
 is there a continual transformation, by virtue of 
 the vital processes of absorption and assimilation, 
 from the inorganic into the organic condition ; 
 and of resolution, by decomposition, from the 
 latter back to the former state. To a certain 
 extent these alternate transformations are analo- 
 gous to those which have just been described, 
 referably to the atmosphere. 
 
 But, notwithstanding of this general analogy 
 between these two atmospheric and terrestrial 
 phenomena in connection with vitality, there is, 
 agriculturally considered, this most important differ- 
 ence between them : — On the one hand, by no 
 human exertion or contrivance, is it possible to les- 
 sen or increase the store of aerial plant food in the 
 pneumatic magazine, either generally or locally ; on 
 the other hand, it is of the very nature of tillage 
 husbandry to produce topical depletion of the ter- 
 restrial vegetative nutriment of the corn fields, in a 
 degree exactly correspondent with the productive 
 success of the husbandman’s industry. In fact, 
 the reduction of a piece of ground from fruitful- 
 
1 GO 
 
 THU PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 ness to infertility, by over cropping and under 
 tillage, is, of all kinds of evidence, the most 
 palpable, that that soil has been emptied, for the 
 time, of its available ingredients of vegetation. 
 
 Now, based on considerations of this kind, it 
 was, that Justus Yon Liebig gave expression to 
 his well known dictum, that, in the manurial 
 department of husbandry, the chief object of the 
 farmer ought to be to procure from extraneous 
 sources, and restore to the soil of his fields, those 
 fertilizing mineral, i.e., terrestrial substances, which, 
 removed from thence through the causes above- 
 mentioned, could only by that means be restored. 
 The more water is drawn from a cistern, the more 
 need is there that additional springs should be 
 conducted into it. 
 
 “ Every farmer, who takes a sack of corn, or a 
 cwt. of rape, turnips, potatoes, &c., to the town, 
 ought, like the Chinese coolie, to carry back with 
 him, from the town, an equal (or, if possible, a 
 larger) quantity of the mineral constituents of the 
 produce sold, and restore them to the field from 
 which they have been taken .” — Modern Agricidture, 
 p. 268. As for the application to the farm of its 
 own indigenous manurial products, he demon- 
 strates it to be a restoration of a mere remnant of 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 167 
 
 what, in the previous season’s crop, had been 
 abstracted from the soil ; the rest being alienated 
 in the condition of meat, corn, or dairy food sent 
 to market, or wasted by exposure to the elutria- 
 tion of rainfall, in the dung court or compost 
 heap. 
 
 “ Respecting the atmospheric nutriments of 
 plants, the teaching of the mineral theorists is, 
 that these are ever in store, and ready to flow to 
 the leaves and roots of vegetation in the fullest 
 abundance, which any fair and unexhaustive 
 method of culture can stimulate them to require. 
 Such, in substance, is the Geissen “ Mineral 
 Theory.” 
 
 Of course, this is not the place to expatiate at 
 large on the grounds on which the authors of the 
 well known Rothamsted experiments have con- 
 tested the doctrines of the German philosopher 
 on this subject ; but the general grounds on 
 which they first urged, and still continue to 
 maintain their argument, are mainly these : — 
 
 First. That in cereal cultivation (and to that 
 species of husbandry only shall these remarks be 
 extended) nitrogenous nutriment, especially of the 
 ammoniacal kind, is required in special abundance. 
 Secondly, that while indisputably the nitrogenous 
 
108 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 stores of the atmosphere are adequate to supply 
 the nitrogenous wants of all kind of wild vegeta- 
 tation ; yet, thirdly, in order to produce those 
 abnormal conditions of growth in the corn plant, 
 which are necessary to raise the quantum of its 
 products to the standard of profitable farming, it 
 is necessary to supply the soil with adventitious 
 nitrogenous matters to act in supplement of the 
 atmospheric contributions. Fourthly, that in 
 general the terrestrial , or, in the language of the 
 controversy, the mineral constituents of plants as 
 contradistinguished from those of atmospheric 
 origin are seldom deficient in the soil ; and, 
 finally, that in the great majority of instances the 
 abundance of a corn crop, will, within certain limits 
 and on certain conditions, depend on the propor- 
 tion of extra nitrogenous matter, especially of 
 the ammoniacal kinds, artificially intermixed, as 
 manure, with the staple. 
 
 To prove these propositions, the English experi- 
 menters have from time to time conveyed to the 
 public, through the pages of the Royal Agricultural 
 Journal of England , elaborate reports of a numer- 
 ous series of experiments, designed to exhibit the 
 behaviour of the wheat plant in its growth : First, 
 under one uniform method of tillage. Secondly, upon 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 169 
 
 one common quality of soil ; but, thirdly, under 
 various conditions of manuring. F or this purpose 
 a field was divided into a number of small plots of 
 about three-fourths of an acre, and each became 
 the area of different consecutive trials. From year 
 to year the kinds and quantities of the various 
 manures used, as well as the measure and weight 
 of the grain produced, and the weight of the 
 straw and chaff’ were accurately registered. 
 
 To afford a common standard of comparison, 
 one of the plots was contemporaneously and suc- 
 cessively cropped with the same kind of wheat as 
 the others, hut without manure of any hind; and 
 the results also duly recorded. 
 
 The period occupied by this laborious and 
 admirably conducted investigation, extended to no 
 less than thirteen successive years ; and as the 
 results possess a very important bearing on the 
 general principles of Tullian husbandry, they will, 
 in this chapter be largely cited. 
 
 Of all of them, however, it is primarily to he 
 remarked — 
 
 1st. That, made, as they were, irrespective of con- 
 siderations of industrial profit to the experimen- 
 ters, they do not fall within the category of 
 practical trials. 
 
170 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 2nd. With regard to the cultural means used, 
 these were deemed of so little importance in the 
 enquiry, that, in the reports of the trials 
 published by the experimenters themselves, no 
 circumstance connected with tillage is admitted, 
 except only in the nugatory instance referred to in 
 the foot note at p. 153. 
 
 And, thirdly. Although the trials consisted of 
 instances of unintermittent corn growing , it is re- 
 markable that Jethro Tull’s discoveries, doctrines, 
 and practice in that mode of husbandry were, in 
 conducting them, completely ignored. 
 
 Thus then, the Rothamsted experimental records 
 do neither throw, nor in their conception were they 
 intended to throw, any direct light on the theory 
 or practice of tillage, viewed as a fundamental 
 element of industrial agriculture. 
 
 Proceeding now, to the particulars of these 
 experiments, we begin with the continuously un- 
 manured or standard plot. 
 
 “ On a soil of heavy loam, on which sheep can- 
 not be fed on turnips, four, five, and six feet above 
 the chalk, and therefore, uninfluenced by it, except 
 in so far as it is thereby naturally drained, ten 
 crops of wheat have been taken in succession, one 
 portion always without any manure whatever, and 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 171 
 
 the rest with a variety of manures, the effects of 
 which have been carefully observed. The seed is 
 of the red cluster variety, drilled uniformly in rows 
 at eight inches apart, and two bushels to the acre, 
 band-hoed twice in spring, and kept perfectly free 
 from weeds. When the crop is removed, the land 
 is scarified with Bentall’s skimmer, all weeds are 
 removed, it is ploughed once, and the seed for the 
 next crop is then drilled in. During the ten years 
 the land, in a natural state, ivithout manure, has pro- 
 duced a uniform average of sixteen bushels of 
 wheat an acre, with 100 lb. of straw per bushel of 
 wheat, the actual quantity varying with the change 
 of seasons, between fourteen and twenty bushels. 
 The repetition of the crop has made no diminution 
 or change in the uniformity of the average ; and 
 the conclusion seems to he established, that if the 
 land is kept clean and worked at proper seasons, it 
 is impossible to exhaust this soil below the power of 
 producing sixteen bushels of wheat, every year." 
 
 Such is the admirable description of this 
 experiment, given in the tenth year of its pro- 
 gress, by the author of “ English Agriculture and 
 from Table I., of this chapter, at p. 175, it will 
 be seen that to its conclusion, in the thirteenth suc- 
 cessive crop, there was no decrease in productive- 
 
172 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES <>!• 
 
 ness, nor any indication of exhaustion of the 
 soil. 
 
 But what has thus been specially related of the 
 Rothamsted soil, is, on the authority of Tull, 
 essentially true of all soils. “ A soil,” he says, 
 (meaning a soil in its natural state,) “ which is 
 proper to one sort of vegetable, once, is, in respect 
 of the sort of food it gives, proper to it always 
 and again, the same quantity of tillage will 
 produce the same quantity of food in the same 
 land ; and the same quantity of food will main- 
 tain the same quantity of vegetables.” 
 
 “ A vineyard, if not tilled, will soon decay, even 
 in rich ground, as may be seen in those in France, 
 lying intermingled as our lands do in common 
 fields. Those lands of vines, which by reason 
 of some law-suit depending about the property 
 of them, or otherwise, lie a year or two untilled, 
 produce no grapes, send out no shoots hardly; 
 the leaves look yellow, and seem dead, in com- 
 parison of those on each side of them, which, 
 being tilled, are full of fruit, send out a hundred 
 times more wood, and their leaves are large and 
 flourishing ; and continue the same annually for ages, 
 if the plough or hoe do not neglect them. 
 
 “ No. change of sorts is needful in them, if the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING 
 
 173 
 
 same annual quantity of tillaye ( which appears to 
 provide the same annual quantity of food ) he con- 
 tinued to the vines." 
 
 Yet, of primary importance as thus are the uses 
 and benefits of tillage, how common is the vague 
 and narrow conception, that the only object of 
 working the soil is to promote the mere mechanical 
 accommodation of plants in the exercise of their 
 underground functions. That this is one of its 
 consequences is most true, yet still more parti- 
 cularly is tillage to he regarded as a means of 
 replenishing the staple with actual materials of 
 fertility as real, although impalpable to the senses, 
 as the distribution of courtyard dung in the turnip 
 field, or a top dressing with special manures. 
 What else hut the extra tillage of the hare fallow 
 is it, which causes the, perhaps, double productive- 
 ness of the succeeding years crop? From skilfully 
 conducted tillage it was, that Tull’s fields, although 
 hearing yearly, unmanured corn crops, increased in 
 fertility, because the aero-manurial effects on the 
 soil, of his very perfect system, year after year, 
 became greater. Hence also it is, that viewing 
 tillage as both a contributive and stimulative agent 
 in vegetation, every soil may he said to possess its 
 tillaye zero of productive capability, below which 
 
174 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 (the same amount of tillage continued) no mode 
 of cropping can reduce it, the elevation or 
 depression of that zero point being in the ratio of 
 the amount and quality of the applied cultural 
 operations. If of the ordinary kind, such as was 
 used in the Rothamsted unmanured experiment, 
 about to be tabulated, (see Table I. below) it may, 
 speculatively be rated at from 16 to 17 bushels of 
 wheat per acre on average soils, and on an average 
 of years; while to Tullian husbandry (see ch. xi. 
 Tables I. and II.) an equivalent of from 24 to 25 
 bushels may be assigned when performed by the 
 plough, and about 34 bushels, if by spade ivorlc. 
 On this subject various of the Rothamsted experi- 
 ments are highly instructive, and will in the 
 sequel be cited ; but we now present, in a condensed 
 form, the successive yearly returns of the plot 
 subjected to thirteen consecutive unmanured wheat 
 crops. In the same Table the results also of a 
 cognate trial conducted at Holkham, and reported 
 by Mr. Lawes, in vol. xvi. of the Royal Agricultural 
 Journal, p. 207, will also be given. 
 
175 
 
 <! 
 
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 Q 
 
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 55 
 
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 55 
 
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 GO 
 
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 CO 
 
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 s* 
 
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 •8j3lU0AV 
 
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 •suaj 
 
 •a.100 
 
 •Raping; 
 
 •pajouBj^ sdioanx 
 
 ■paSuny sdia-mx 
 
 •p 8 WS }om 
 
 •paisiuumo^ 
 
 •tUBHJtioH 
 
 Average of tbe two Sets of Experiments Bus. 
 
176 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES UK 
 
 Another analogous, though differently arranged, 
 experiment on unmanured wheat growth, may next 
 be cited, shewing, as it does very strikingly, what 
 may be called the actual equivalent, in bushels of 
 corn, of tillage of the ordinary kind bestowed on 
 a bare fallow. 
 
 TABLE II. 
 
 Bus. per Acre 
 
 In 1850-1, one of the Bothamsted plots was bare 
 
 fallowed, and therefore produced 0 
 
 ,, 1851—2, being cropped with wheat, and cultivated 
 similarly to the continuously cropped plot, it 
 
 produced 37 
 
 „ 1852-3, it was bare fallow, producing 0 
 
 ,, 1853-4, being under wheat, it produced 42 
 
 ,, 1854-5, it was bare fallow, producing 0 
 
 ,, 1855—6, it bore crop, and yielded 21 
 
 3) 100 
 33-1 
 
 In 1851-2, the unmanured and continuously 
 
 cropped plot yielded 13-3 
 
 „ 1853-4, »l-0 
 
 „ 1855-6, 14-2 
 
 3)49-1 
 
 16-2 
 
 Average superiority of the biennial crops Bus. 16.3 
 
 Now, since this superiority is in the ratio of 
 two to one, there need be no hesitation in 
 attributing the doubled biennial yields of this 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 177 
 
 fallowed instance : — firstly, to the benefits of two 
 years’ tillage, obtained by one year’s crop ; 
 secondly, to the power of the soil to store np the 
 unused nutritive matters, elaborated in the prior 
 season, from all abstraction, save only by the 
 roots of the succeeding year’s crop, which, thus 
 supplied with double aliment, yielded a double 
 increase. Nor is it uninteresting to know, that a 
 portion of the same plot, having in 1854-5, been 
 divided off for separate experiment, and put 
 under a second successive wheat crop, the produce 
 at once dropped down to the average zero of six- 
 teen and a half bushels. 
 
 The next instance of Rothamsted experiment 
 affords an important contribution to that limited 
 amount of precise knowledge, which exists in 
 relation to the industrial or productive value of 
 farm -yard dung, as a fertilizer. 
 
 TABLE III. 
 
 Bus. per Acre 
 
 For seven successive years one of the plots was 
 
 annually manured with fourteen tons of farm 
 yard dung, and produced an acreable average 
 
 of .. 28.0 
 
 During the same period, the standard plot (by 
 which expression is henceforth to be under- 
 stood the continuously cropped, and un- 
 manured one) yielded an yearly average of... 17’3 
 
 And thus there is brought out a superiority of in- 
 
 crease, attributable to the manure, of 10T 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Which, converted into money at 7s. per bushel, 
 
 gives £3 11 9 
 
 Now, assuming the cost to the farmer of produc- 
 ing this fertilizer, to be (as stated by Morton, 
 in his Cyclopedia of Agriculture) 5s. per ton, 
 and 6d. more for carting, &c., the cost of the 
 above experimental quantity is 3 17 0 
 
 Hence, it would thus seem that not only is there 
 no gain by the use of farm-yard manure, 
 applied to the wheat crop, hut an actual loss 
 of 0 5 3 
 
 But further : if from this experiment it is to 
 be inferred, that, in the growth of wheat, 10b. Ip. 
 must be held as the productive equivalent, of 14 
 tons, of dung accumulated by the live stock of the 
 farm, even when applied in yearly succession, how 
 small must the residual benefits be conceived to 
 be, of even this typical species of fertilizer, to the 
 ultimate cereal member of a rotation after con- 
 tributing its nourishment to the various prior 
 crops. A similar experiment at Holkham gave 
 almost exactly similar results ; and whilst it 
 must be admitted, that on so narrow a basis of 
 observation, it would be premature to draw any 
 general conclusion adverse to the economical 
 manufacture and use of court-yard manure, it 
 is impossible not to remember the very secondary 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 179 
 
 importance attributed to it by that greatest of 
 agricultural observers and reasoners, Jethro Tull. 
 
 The following Table exhibits the results of an 
 analogous experiment with Rape-cake, conducted 
 at Holkham. 
 
 TABLE IV. 
 
 Bus. per Acre 
 
 Dressed yearly for three years, from 1852-54, 
 with this substance, at the rate of 2,000 lbs. 
 
 per acre, a plot yielded, on an average 31 - 3 
 
 And deducting the zero produce of the standard 
 
 plot, namely 17-3 
 
 An additional yield, attributable to the manure, is 
 
 shewn of 14-0 
 
 The money value of this quantity is £4 18 0 
 
 But as the ordinary price of rape cake, 2,000 lbs. 
 
 will cost 5 11 0 
 
 There is thus exhibited a loss per acre, by the use 
 
 of this substance as a fertilizer, of £0 13 0 
 
 § 2. Of the Old Scottish System of Farming. 
 
 These experiments in manuring, as well as the 
 general principles involved in that department of 
 husbandry, will receive considerable illustration 
 from the following brief account of the Old Farm- 
 ing of Scotland, anterior to the introduction there, 
 of the alternate system, in the latter part of the 
 last century. 
 
180 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Of old, the Scottish farm consisted in point of 
 area of, first, a series of fields lying more imme- 
 diately around the homestead, (hence termed 
 infield,) and these formed the main part of the 
 farm, and as such received the farmer’s chief 
 attention ; secondly, various enclosures lying ex- 
 terior to the infields, and therefore named outfield; 
 thirdly, of a track of moorland pasture beyond the 
 outfields : and, fourthly, of a detached mountain 
 cattle-range, usually under commonable occu- 
 pancy. Upon this last part of the farm, the 
 store animals were summered ; and at the close 
 of the season, these were brought to the home 
 pasture, and there turned loose to shift for them- 
 selves, as they best could, during winter. Nightly, 
 however, they were folded in one or other of the 
 outfields, which, thus receiving the manurial 
 benefit of their droppings, become in some sort 
 able to undergo crop after crop of corn, until 
 what between the secondary attention which the 
 outfield tillage received, and the increase of weed 
 consequent on imperfect management, the yield, 
 yearly decreasing, came at last to be no more than 
 repaid seed and labour. Arrived at this stage of 
 depression, the field was dropt out of cultivation ; 
 and, in process of time, acquiring a spontaneous 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 181 
 
 covering of natural herbage, it then was thrown 
 open to the beasts, and became part and parcel 
 of the wintering pasture ground. In this state 
 it was left to recruit itself for a number of years, 
 greater or less, according to the quality of the 
 soil ; and then was again folded and cropped as 
 before. In this manner were the outfields, one 
 after another, subjected to a periodical alternation 
 of cereal and pastoral husbandry. 
 
 Next, as respects the treatment of the infield. 
 And if it be true, that to the Roman colonists of 
 England was due the introduction of the bare 
 fallow in the practice of that country, so probably 
 the absence of that expedient from the old 
 Scottish system may be attributable to no Roman 
 settlement having ever been permanently formed 
 in the northern and less accessible and inviting 
 part of the island. Be that as it may, the bare 
 fallow was, in fact, unpractised in Scotland until 
 the middle of the last century, and the in-field 
 was subjected to absolutely unintermittent corn 
 culture, without the periodical intervention of any 
 fallow rest whatever. 
 
 Yet it is very certain that this treatment, con- 
 tinued for many centuries, in no respect under- 
 mined the natural productive vigour of the soil, 
 
182 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 since the very same inclosures, originally selected 
 for in-field management because of their superior 
 quality, are, still noted as the most fertile portion 
 of the farm. Indeed, manurially considered, the 
 system was far from unfavourable to sustained 
 fertility in the infield, because on it was exclu- 
 sively distributed the entire court-yard products, 
 consisting not only of its own straw converted 
 into dung, but of the fodder of the outfields also ; 
 and thus in effect, the infield was constantly re- 
 ceiving extraneous contributions of vegetative 
 nutriment. 
 
 But to pursue this important subject a little 
 farther. At last, the alternate system suddenly 
 broke in and overwhelmed the old Scottish hus- 
 bandry, subjecting both infield and outfield to one 
 common management of regular rotations ; and 
 at this point of our narrative, the question natu- 
 rally arises, What now, through this radical 
 change, became the manurial circumstances of 
 the farm ? They may thus be defined. Much 
 greater crops were raised from the soil ; but as 
 the quantity of produce in cattle and corn sent to 
 market was proportionably great, what remained 
 to be restored to the fields in the condition of 
 manure, was, therefore, a mere residue of those 
 
TILLAGE ANP MANURING. 
 
 183 
 
 vegetative matters, which in the previous season 
 had been withdrawn from the soil. In other 
 words, a much increased expenditure of terrestrial 
 nutriments was thereby occasioned, without any 
 replacement of them from extraneous sources. 
 
 That progressive prosperity and not impover- 
 ishment signalized this seemingly exhaustive in- 
 novation would be marvellous, did we not know 
 that tillage is stimulatively a substitute for manure ; 
 that an amazing improvement in every depart- 
 ment of tillage characterized this change in 
 Scottish agriculture ; and specially that, at a 
 time when Jethro Tull’s principles and practice were 
 rejected by his own country ; these, to the lasting 
 honour of Scotland, were, in drilled and horse-hoed 
 fallow cropping, made a chief basis of her new 
 husbandry. 
 
 “ It was a singular testimony of merit,” says 
 Mr. Wren Hoskyns, writing of Tull, “ that his work 
 was translated simultaneously by three French 
 writers, unknown to each other. But nearly 
 thirty years elapsed before his practice was at all 
 generally adopted or understood, and this (through 
 the instrumentality of Lord Belhaven, who had 
 the merit of introducing it into East Lothian), 
 took place in Scotland, long before it was common 
 
184 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 in England. It proceeded, however, but slowly 
 until about the year 1762. But the whole his- 
 tory of Scottish agriculture from that period is 
 as Mr. M'Culloch has remarked, of the rapid 
 increase of its rental, from the year 1795 to 1815, 
 “ probably unmatched in any old settled country.” 
 — Mortons Cyclopedia of Agriculture ; Introduc- 
 tory Essay, p. 19. 
 
 §2 .Of that theory of Degeneration in the cultivated cereals , 
 which , heretofore, has usually been an objection to a departure , 
 in practice, from the alternate system of husbandry. 
 
 Of the validity of this once prevalent theory, 
 Jethro Tull not only entertained no belief, but 
 specially directed and argued against it his 
 happily expressed thesis, “ that a soil which is 
 proper to one sort of vegetable once, is, in respect of 
 the sort of food it gives, proper to it alivays,” 
 and which may be amplified in substance, 
 into the following proposition, namely, that 
 nothing in the physiological constitution of 
 plants, either requires change of species in 
 field husbandry, or forbids the uninterrupted 
 yearly growth of one and the same species, 
 on one and the same spot, if, either by nature (as 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 185 
 
 in the case of wild vegetation), or by cultivation, 
 their roots are annually provided with a fresh 
 supply of food, to replace that which, in the pre- 
 vious year’s vegetation, had been consumed. 
 
 Of these propositions Tull, arguing them on 
 general grounds, gives a variety of well-chosen 
 illustrations. Thus, he writes : 
 
 “ Pasture requires no change of herbs ; because 
 they have annually the same supply of food from 
 the dunging of cattle that feed on them, and from 
 the benefit of the atmosphere. 
 
 “ Meadows hold out without change of species of 
 grass, though a crop be carried off every year; the 
 richness of that soil, with the help of the atmo- 
 sphere, dung of cattle in feeding the after-crop, or 
 else flooding, from the overflowing of some river, 
 some, or all of which, supply the place of the 
 plough to a meadow. 
 
 “ Woods also hold out beyond memory or tradi- 
 tion, without changing sorts of trees ; and this, by 
 the leaves, and, perhaps, old wood rotting on the 
 soil annually, which operate as a manure, because, 
 as has been said, earth which has once passed any 
 vessels, is so changed, that for a long time after, 
 it does not regain its homogeneity so much as to 
 mix with pure earth, without fermenting ; and by 
 
186 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 the descent of the atmosphere, the trees shadowing 
 the soil, to prevent the re-ascent of what that 
 brings down ; all this, resembling tillage, continu- 
 ally divides the soil, and renews the food equal to 
 the consumption of it made by the wood. 
 
 “ It is seen, that the same sort of Aveeds which 
 once came naturally in a soil, if suffered to grow, 
 will always prosper in proportion to the tillage and 
 manure bestowed upon it, without any change. 
 (And so are all manner of plants that have been 
 yet tried by the new husbandry, seen to do.)” 
 
 But, citing again, the vineyard culture, “what 
 proves this thesis most fully,” says Tull, “ is that 
 where they constantly till the low vines with the 
 plough, which is almost the same with the hoe- 
 plough, the stems are planted about four feet 
 asunder, chequer-wise ; so that they plough them 
 fourways. When any of these plants happen to 
 die, new ones are immediately planted in their 
 room, and exactly in the points or angles where 
 the others have rotted; else, if planted out of 
 those angles, they would stand in the way of the 
 plough. These young vines, I say, so planted in 
 the very graves, as it were, of their predecessors, 
 grow, thrive, and prosper well, the soil being thus 
 constantly tilled : and if a plum tree, or any other 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING 
 
 187 
 
 plant had such tillage, it might as well succeed 
 one of its own species, as those vines do. 
 
 “ And the last argument I shall attempt to bring 
 for confirmation of all I have advanced, is, that 
 which proves both the truth and use of the rest, 
 viz., that when any sort of vegetable, by the due 
 degrees of heat and moisture it requires, is agree- 
 able to a soil, it may, by the new horse-hoeing 
 husbandry, be continued without ever changing 
 the species.” 
 
 Besides these beautiful illustrations, however, 
 we are enabled, by the Rothamsted experiments, 
 to present this subject under very severe investi- 
 gation, and in a light altogether convincing to any 
 reasonable mind, how accustomed soever to 
 venerate the alternate system as necessary to 
 sustained perfection in vegetation. But before re- 
 lating the instance, the question shall primarily be 
 raised, What, when strictly examined and dis- 
 associated from mere vulgar belief, are the charac- 
 teristics and real nature of that phenomenon in 
 vegetation which, in its true sense, is degeneration'} 
 
 Now, taking as an example the oat plant ; in 
 Scotland, as is well known, the cultivation of this 
 cereal has obtained very great attention, and 
 from this cause, joined possibly with peculiar 
 
188 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 suitableness of climate, it acquires the compact 
 shape and remarkable thinness of husk which are 
 usually seen in the samples of that country. But, 
 every one knows, that if a parcel of this kind be 
 transferred for cultivation to some less appropriate 
 climate, and there subjected to inadequate tillage, 
 especially if accompanied by in and in seeding, 
 its characteristics of breeding will, year after year, 
 gradually disappear, and the progeny ultimately 
 acquire features of inferiority betokening a return 
 to wild vegetation. Again, if in addition to these, 
 any further signs of retrogression were sought for, 
 they would be found in a diminished kernel, 
 relatively to husk, and consequently in a decreased 
 weight per bushel of corn, as well as, commonly if 
 not always, a decrease in the weight of the 
 grain relatively to that of the straw. But 
 again, if next, this deteriorated product were 
 re- transferred to the locality of its original parent- 
 age, and there cultivated, even then its acquired 
 imperfections would continue to exhibit them- 
 selves, through several successive generations, with 
 more or less hereditary persistency. 
 
 Now, if in these qualitative circumstances are to 
 be recognised the true characteristics of degeneration, 
 how palpably distinguishable is this phenomenon 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 189 
 
 from that one with which it is so usually and 
 erroneously confounded, and which consists in 
 quantitative not qualitative falling off. Thus, for 
 instance, take the supposed case of three several 
 farms of similar soils, occupied by three equally 
 good farmers, and who, though each pursuing a 
 different mode of management, severally do so with 
 judgment and skill. Two of them follow rotation 
 systems, the one according to those notions of 
 high farming, which lead to a liberal expenditure 
 in adventitious feeding stuffs and extraneous 
 manures. The other contents himself with con- 
 suming no more than his own green crops in the 
 courtlage, and with using nothing but the ferti- 
 lizing products from that source in his fields. 
 The quality of corn produced by each is the same, 
 but the quantity greater in the first case, and less 
 in the second. Will any one assert that in the 
 latter instance the phenomenon of degeneration , in 
 its proper acceptation, is discernible ? The third 
 farmer, disbelieving any profitable advantage in 
 alternate husbandry, and convinced that the cost 
 of making and applying homestead manure is 
 more than its intrinsic worth, subjects his 
 fields to unalternate and unmanured corn grow- 
 ing, and in consequence, in place of realising 
 
190 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 30 or 40 bush, per acre from his soil, as under a 
 four-field course of cropping may biennially be done, 
 he gets 16 bushels annually. Now, remembering 
 that the issue at the present moment under trial, 
 is merely physiological, and is exclusive of any 
 question of ultimate pecuniary profit, has there, 
 in this instance, more than in the other two, been 
 disclosed any element of true degeneracy ? If, in 
 short, we are to seek for a real criterion of that 
 vegetative phenomenon, must it not be in qualita- 
 tive not in quantitative circumstances ? 
 
 But the question, perhaps, will next be raised by 
 doubting minds, whether true qualitative degenera- 
 tion is not, actually, an invariable consequence of 
 unintermittent cereal cultivation. Now, in proof to 
 the contrary there is, in the first place, the old 
 unalternate husbandry of England to shew that 
 century after century the grain productiveness of 
 the country was eminently progressive (see Table I. 
 p. 30). Passing next to particular cases, w r e have 
 Tull's reiterated assurances that improved quality 
 of corn was a notable characteristic of his unalter- 
 nate system. Moreover the circumstance recorded 
 by him, that under that management the ratio of 
 weight between the corn and straw of his sheaves 
 became greater in favour of the former, is in itself 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 191 
 
 conclusive on this subject. In the subsequent 
 instances of Tullian husbandry, cited in Chapter 
 xi., Tables I & II, the only data on this point, are 
 the proportions stated in five of them (Nos. 7, 8, 9, 
 10 & 11) of the weight of straw compared with the 
 quantity of corn ; and as the ratio on an average 
 of all these cases is under 8 cwt. of the former 
 to each quarter of the latter, they are hence to be 
 held as indicative of a well conditioned produce 
 in every respect. But further, in those invaluable 
 reports of Rothamsted investigation, which form 
 the main subject of comment in this Chapter, 
 the weights of both corn and straw were yearly 
 recorded, and these are accordingly made the 
 foundation of the following Table : 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 192 
 
 TABLE V. 
 
 
 Bushels per Acre. 
 
 Weight of Grain 
 
 j per Bushel. 
 
 Total Weight of the 
 
 Bushels per Acre. 
 
 Weight of Straw 
 
 per Acre. 
 
 1. In order to form a standard of com- 
 
 Bush. 
 
 lbs. oz. 
 
 lbs. oz. 
 
 lbs. oz. 
 
 parison, the estimated acreable pro- 
 duce of wheat and straw, given in the 
 instance already cited from Bayldon’s 
 work, at p. 157, shall be taken, viz. . . 
 
 32 
 
 03 ? 
 
 2010 
 
 3360 
 
 Note. — No weight per bushel is 
 given in that estimate, but it is here 
 assumed at G31bs. 
 
 2. Average produce of seven years of the 
 Rothamsted plot manured with farm- 
 yard dung 
 
 28 
 
 04.8 
 
 1809 
 
 2906 
 
 3. Average produce of the standard plot 
 for the same period 
 
 17.3 
 
 03.0 
 
 1125 
 
 1750 
 
 In the similar trial at Holkham the re- 
 sults were as follows : — 
 
 1. Proceeds of the plot manured with 
 farm -yard dung 
 
 30 r} 
 
 02.10 
 
 1010 
 
 2000 
 
 2. Proceeds of the plot manured with 
 rape cake 
 
 31. | 
 
 01.3 
 
 1941 
 
 2747 
 
 3. Produce of the standard plot 
 
 17. i 
 
 61.4 
 
 1086 
 
 1298 
 
 Note. — The less proportion of straw in these latter instances, com- 
 pared with the Rotliamsted trials, arises from the chaff and cavings 
 having been excluded from the weighing of the straw. 
 
 If, now, the truth of the hypothesis, which 
 assigns to successive corn growing a degenerative 
 effect (using the term in its proper qualitative 
 sense) be assumed for a moment it would, a priori , 
 be inferible, that were calculations gone into of 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 193 
 
 the comparative weight of com and straw in these 
 alternate and unalternate instances, they would 
 pronounce in favour of the alternate system. 
 
 But, in point of fact, such calculations actually 
 made, give no countenance either to this inference 
 or to the unreal hypothesis from which it is 
 drawn, — as is seen from the following Table : — 
 
 TABLE VI. 
 
 ... 
 
 a 
 
 £ 
 
 
 "3 
 
 U P* 
 
 
 *3 S 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5S, 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 
 
 
 lbs. oz. 
 
 lbs. oz. 
 
 1. Instance cited from Bayldon’s work 
 
 63. 
 
 1.10 
 
 2. Rothamsted plot manured with farm- 
 
 
 
 yard dung 
 
 64. 8 
 
 1.10 
 
 3. Rothamstead standard unmanured plot... 
 
 63. 6 
 
 1. 9 
 
 HOLKHAM EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 
 
 1. Plot manured with farm-yard dung 
 
 62.10 
 
 1. 5 
 
 2. Plot manured with rape cake 
 
 61. 3 
 
 1. 6 
 
 3. Standard unmanured plot 
 
 61. 4 
 
 1. 3 
 
 To pursue this argument any further, would 
 simply be to maintain a profitless conflict with a 
 convicted vulgar error. Degeneration mag indeed be 
 o 
 
194 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 a concomitant of imperfect tillage, but is not neces- 
 sarily produced by either unalternate or unmanured 
 corn husbandry. 
 
 §3. Of the Theory of “ Nitrogenous Manuring,” as contradistin- 
 guished from the “ Mineral Theory ” of Liebig. 
 
 In all countries there are very fruitful soils, of 
 which the origin may be traced to the natural 
 disintegration of the underlying rock ; and if a 
 lump of such rock were reduced by trituration 
 to the fineness of mould, it might be used experi- 
 mentally as an artificial soil. 
 
 Suppose, then, a flower-pot to be filled with a 
 preparation of this kind, and a seed of some 
 ordinary plant to be deposited therein, and the 
 apparatus placed in the open air to obtain all the 
 atmospheric influences which vegetation, in its 
 common condition, receives. So arranged, the 
 seed would germinate, and the plant grow and 
 fructify, if not with all the exuberance, at least 
 with all the essential perfectness of one growing 
 in a cultivated field. 
 
 If, however, another seed of the same kind 
 w T ere deposited in a similar apparatus filled with 
 the prepared rock, — and so placed as not to receive 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 195 
 
 the benefits of rain-fall, but to be moistened 
 instead with water deprived, by distillation, of all 
 atmospheric impregnation ; the plant so treated 
 would indeed grow, but neither vigorously nor 
 fruitfully. 
 
 To account for this difference, the explanations 
 given in a prior chap. (ch. vi. p. 59) require only to 
 be remembered; namely, that rain-drops and dew in 
 their descent through the air, absorb into them- 
 selves, by solution, the atmospheric constituents of 
 plant fertility, of which nitrogenous compounds 
 form essential elements, and these saturating the 
 artificial soil of the first of these two experimental 
 instances, and performing both contributive and 
 decompositive functions favourable to vegetative 
 action, elaborate thereby an amount of joint 
 mineral and atmospheric aliment adequate to 
 the nurture of the perfect plant ; whilst these 
 conditions being absent in the second case, an 
 abortive development of growth is the conse- 
 quence. 
 
 Next, let several such experimental vessels be 
 charged with the same material. Let it also be 
 supposed, that the constituents, terrestrial and 
 atmospheric, of the species of plant to be grown 
 in them, have been ascertained by chemical 
 
196 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 analysis, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, 
 and that three separate quantities of water are 
 prepared with the following solutions : — one 
 with the ascertained proportion of mineral 
 substances in the plant ; another with the 
 proportion of its atmospheric ingredients ; and 
 the third with a mixture of both. If now by 
 watering a pot with each mixture separately 
 and exclusively, the experimenter should find 
 that, although all the three obtained benefit from 
 the process, the two treated with the atmo- 
 spheric impregnations produced a more vigorous 
 and more fruitful plant than that moistened with 
 the mineral prescription ; if further he found in 
 other trials that the efficacy of the atmospheric 
 solutions was always greater where an extra pro- 
 portion of nitrogenous ingredient was used, then 
 might he be entitled, theoretically at least, to 
 maintain, that where adventitious development is 
 sought to be attained in vegetation by means of 
 artificially applied nutriments, a nitrogenous ele- 
 ment should be made to preponderate in the 
 prescription. 
 
 Further still ; if results like these were un- 
 equivocally brought out, by analogous trials of 
 various nitrogenous manures in field experiments, 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 197 
 
 what, till then, were, perhaps, to be regarded as 
 speculative conclusions only, might now merit the 
 character of practical demonstration ; and these 
 being, in reality, the circumstances which charac- 
 terised the Rothamsted trials, instituted to test 
 this important question, the teaching of that 
 school of agricultural investigation is, in England 
 at least, regarded as forming the basis of the 
 nitrogenous side of the theory of specific manur- 
 ing, and as exhibiting all that is yet known of the 
 manner and measure of its practical efficacy and 
 economy. Accordingly, in Table VII. of this chap- 
 ter will be found a succinct abstract of certain of 
 these experiments, as well as of certain industrial 
 calculations founded on them. 
 
 Next, to resume from page 166, the leading 
 principles of the “ Mineral Theory." 
 
 It has already been assumed, that the constitu- 
 ent chemical elements of the experimental plant 
 have been ascertained, both quantitatively and 
 qualitatively. Let it next be assumed that the 
 artificial soil in which it grew has also been 
 analyzed. Now the previous fact that the plant 
 had actually thriven in it, of itself, is good 
 evidence that at least all the mineral elements of 
 
198 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 vegetative growth were in the detritus ; and 
 actual analysis would afford the same conclusion. 
 
 Conceivable it now must be, that were one plant 
 after another to be grown yearly, in one and the same 
 experimental pot for a number of years, the 
 quantity of vegetative nutriment contained therein, 
 would necessarily undergo an amount of diminu- 
 tion, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, equal to 
 what mineral pabulum had been consumed by each 
 yearly plant in its growth and fructification. If 
 further, in another pot, a more luxuriant plant 
 were raised, by means, we shall say, of a maxi- 
 mum application of nitrogenous stimulant, it is 
 also obvious that the amount of mineral abstrac- 
 tion would, in that case, be correspondingly 
 greater.* 
 
 * Take any vegetable at maturity, say a ripened wheat 
 plant with the grain in the ear, and weight it. Expose it, 
 next, for a considerable time to a heat short of scorching, 
 and again weight it. A loss of weight will thus be caused 
 occasioned by the expulsion by evaporation of all the free 
 water in the plant. Next, let the plant be burned in an 
 open vessel, carefully, so as to preserve what ash remains 
 after the combustion has ceased ; weigh the ash, and its 
 weight gives the precise amount quantitavely of terrestrial 
 nutriment withdrawn from the soil, in the growth and fruc- 
 tification of the plant, through the medium of the roots. 
 The difference of weight between the dried plant and the 
 
TILLAGE ANl) MANURING. 199 
 
 Assuming next, both pots to contain equal 
 amounts of nutriment, and the rate of with- 
 drawal to be double in the second instance, of 
 that in the first, then of course the ultimate 
 reduction of the soil to the state of caput mor- 
 tuum would occur in half the time. Hence the 
 economic effect of nitrogenous or any other kind 
 of merely stimulative manuring, examined as an 
 industrial question, is not to confer additional 
 productive power to the soil, but only to stimu- 
 late its normal capacity in that respect, to more 
 rapid exertion, at the expense of more speedy 
 ultimate exhaustion. In this way, the only ele- 
 ment of difference between the two cases, is that 
 of time only. 
 
 But, “in agriculture,” says Liebig, “ no factor, 
 or element of the calculation, is more important 
 
 ash, indicates the amount of atmospheric food assimilated 
 by it from the soil and air by means of the roots and leaves. 
 Estimating the mean produce of an acre of wheat 
 
 corn, and straw, at lbs. 4,500 
 
 The proportions of aqueous, atmospheric and 
 terrestrial constituency in this quantity, may 
 approximately be stated thus : — 
 
 Water lbs. 503 
 
 Atmospheric matter 3759 
 
 Terrestrial matter 178 
 
 4,500 
 
200 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 than that of time ; and the too great neglect of 
 this consideration in farming is unquestionably 
 the most serious obstacle to its progress. The 
 just appreciation of the value of any special 
 manure depends on a knowledge of its effects in 
 time. An individual manure, which, in one year, 
 may increase the produce of a field, in the most 
 astonishing manner, may, if applied to the same 
 field in the same way for five years, produce not 
 the slightest effect, or even a diminution of the 
 produce. Hence arises, when the manure is used 
 for a short time, an over-estimate of its value, and 
 in a longer period, an unmerited depreciation of 
 it . — Royal Agricultural Journal, vol. xvii. p. 297. 
 The very same industrial consideration is expressed 
 by Tull in a passage already quoted at p. 51. 
 “ Dung, without tillage, can do very little ; with 
 some tillage does something; with much tillage 
 pulverizes [i. e. fertilizes] the soil in less time than 
 tillage alone can do ; but the tillage alone, ivith 
 more time, can pulverize [fertilize] as well.” 
 
 From the foregoing ideal illustrations, the tran- 
 sition is not difficult to the manurial practices of 
 actual farming ; and concerning these, the fol- 
 lowing may be held to be the substance of Liebig’s 
 opinions, so far as it necessary to cite them in addi- 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 201 
 
 dition to what already has been stated at p. 16G, 
 viz. : — First, that the natural processes in the 
 soil by which vegetative mineral nutriment 
 is constantly produced, are susceptible of two 
 kinds of cultural increase, one resulting in a 
 moderate but permanent elimination of fer- 
 tility ; the other in a present excessive productive 
 action, followed sooner or later by a corresponding 
 degree of exhaustion. Secondly : That to the 
 former of these processes belongs every manurial 
 means wdiich promotes the restoration quanti- 
 tatively and qualitatively to the soil of the terres- 
 trial aliments, removed from thence in the crops. 
 Thirdly : That to the latter system belongs the 
 use of nitrogenous manures ; and F ourtldy, that 
 when the farmer in sending to market the ex- 
 tracted mineral essence of his fields in the form 
 of corn and meat, fails to bring back manurial 
 matters, rich in the terrestrial elements of vege- 
 tation so alienated — and when, instead, he loads 
 his return waggon with stimulants, whether nitro- 
 genous or of any other kind, in order, in the 
 succeeding season, to excite an’? inordinate pro- 
 ductiveness, he is like the reckless spend-thrift, 
 who, not content with the yearly income of his 
 fortune, persistently encroaches on the capital, 
 
202 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 and ends in poverty ; or to change the simile, the 
 judicious manuring farmer is like the prudent 
 manufacturer, who is constantly making due pro- 
 vision of raw material, both in kind and quantity, 
 proportioned to the amount of goods he purposes 
 to work up and send to market. 
 
 To expatiate further on these conflicting 
 Theories would be beyond the scope of this 
 treatise ; and there shall now be placed before 
 the reader a Table composed of Rothamsted 
 experiments made with special manures of the 
 ammoniacal kind, and in which will he found a 
 succinct exposition, both of the quality and 
 quantity of the substances used, and of the pro- 
 ductive returns and economic results so obtained. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 203 
 
 TABLE VII. 
 
 Shewing the Particulars of the Rothamsted Experiments in 
 Ammoniacal Manuring; as reported in Vols. xn. and xvi. 
 of the Royal Agricultural Journal of England. 
 
 Year. 
 
 No. of 
 Plots. 
 
 MANURES. 
 
 PRODUCE. 
 
 Sulphate of 
 Ammonia. 
 
 Muriate of 
 Ammonia. 
 
 Dressed 
 
 Corn. 
 
 Total Weight 
 of Corn. 
 
 Weight of 
 
 Straw. 
 
 Weight of 
 | Total Produce 
 
 
 
 
 Lbs. 
 
 Lbs. 
 
 Bush. 
 
 Lbs. 
 
 Lbs. 
 
 Lbs. 
 
 1845 
 
 
 No, 9. 
 
 168 
 
 168 
 
 33. l£ 
 
 2131 
 
 4058 
 
 
 1847 
 
 
 „ 9 a? 
 
 150 
 
 150 
 
 26.2 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ” 
 
 
 „ 06 
 
 150 
 
 150 
 
 26.- 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 1845 1 
 
 
 
 168 
 
 168 
 
 31.31 
 
 1980 
 
 4266 
 
 6246 
 
 1846 
 
 
 
 224 
 
 
 27. lj 
 
 1850 
 
 2244 
 
 4094 
 
 1847 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 150 
 
 25.3 
 
 1702 
 
 2891 
 
 4593 
 
 1848 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 150 
 
 19.1 
 
 1334 
 
 2367 
 
 3701 
 
 1849 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 200 
 
 32.2 
 
 2141 
 
 2854 
 
 4992 
 
 1850 
 
 )■ 
 
 .. lOd 
 
 200 
 
 200 
 
 26.31 
 
 1721 
 
 3089 
 
 4810 
 
 1851 
 
 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 5036 
 
 1852 
 
 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 4107 
 
 1853 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 2691 
 
 1854 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 5808 
 
 1855 J 
 
 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 3797 
 
 1845 
 
 
 
 168 
 
 168 
 
 31.31 
 
 1980 
 
 4266 
 
 6246 
 
 1847 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 150 
 
 25.2J 
 
 1705 
 
 2874 
 
 4579 
 
 1849 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 200 
 
 32.2| 
 
 2156 
 
 2964 
 
 5117 
 
 1851 
 
 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 4985 
 
 1852 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 4162 
 
 1853 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 3578 
 
 1854 
 
 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 7003 
 
 1855 J 
 
 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 5073 
 
 Averages . . 
 
 173 
 
 154 
 
 28.1 
 
 1558 
 
 2656 
 
 4769 
 
204 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 Average of di’essed com brought forward B. 28.1 
 
 In the years in which the Produce of Dressed Corn 
 is specified in the foregoing Table, the average 
 produce of the unmanured standard plot was... 17. 3f 
 
 Average acreable increase by means of the 
 
 manures ) ' 4 
 
 Which, at 7s. per bushel, is equal to £3 12 1 
 
 The acreable cost of the manures is as follows — 
 
 Sulphate of Ammonia, 1731bs. at £15 
 
 per ton £1 3 0 
 
 Muriate of Ammonia, 154lbs. at £'26 
 
 per ton 115 0 
 
 2 18 0 
 
 Gain per acre from the use of Ammoniacal Manures 
 
 in successive wheat growing 0 14 1 
 
 But while ammonia gives growth, “it depends,” 
 says the author of English Agriculture, in com- 
 menting on the Rothamsted experiments, “ on 
 climate, whether that produce is straw or corn. 
 In a wet, cold summer, a heavy application of 
 ammonia produces an undue developement of the 
 circulating condition of the plant, the crop is laid, 
 and the farmer’s hopes disappointed .” — English 
 Agriculture, p. 461. This is that “unhealthy 
 grossness of wheat fed with crude ammoniacal 
 salts” alluded to by Mr. Way, when expressing 
 the proposition, that “ wheat grown after the 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 205 
 
 Tullian system seems never to become over luxu- 
 riant ; for, in the latter case, as the ammonia is only 
 obtained by virtue of the power of the soil to 
 abstract it from the air, so it can never exist in it 
 in any other than the form in which it is best 
 suited for the wants of the crop .” — Journal 
 Royl. Agricl. Soc., vol. xiii. p. 143. 
 
 Thus, at every turn, do we find modern science 
 paying obeisance to the comprehensive and emin- 
 ently practical genius of Jethro Tull. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 206 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Recapitulation and Summary. — Young’s Eulogy on Tull. 
 
 In this concluding chapter, we would recapitulate 
 what in the foregoing narrative it has been our 
 endeavour to shew : 
 
 First : That Jethro Tull was the originator 
 of thin sowing in English agriculture. 
 
 Secondly : That he was the inventor also, not 
 only of every species of drilling, whether in corn 
 or fallow crops, now practised in modern hus- 
 bandry, but of the first English drill sowing 
 machine. 
 
 Thirdly : That to him likewise we owe the intro- 
 duction of that kind of interculture peculiar to 
 the fallow crops, and which, in times past, has 
 been the great ornament and main success of 
 alternate farming. 
 
 Fourthly: That the doctrines, Tillage a substi- 
 tute for manure, and Tillage competent to support 
 unintermittent corn groiving, although hitherto re- 
 jected in modern farming, were also taught and 
 practised by him. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 207 
 
 Fifthly : That to exclude the cultivation of cat- 
 tle crops from the management of the modern 
 improved farm, would only be to revert to the 
 ancient tillage farming of England, which ob- 
 tained up to the introduction of roots and 
 clover as plants of field culture. 
 
 Sixthly : That this elder husbandry was vicious 
 in no respect except in an insufficiency of tillage 
 means, either to cleanse the surface from foul 
 vegetation, or to promote adequately the me- 
 chanical and chemical amelioration of the staple. 
 
 Seventhly : That the main feature in the old 
 tillage husbandry of England was successive corn 
 growing, under which, successive as it was, 
 the soil of the kingdom, not only underwent 
 no diminution in productiveness, hut actually 
 kept pace in fertility with the advance of 
 national industry, and the improvement of 
 agricultural practice. It was also pointed out, 
 that this increasing fruitfulness could not be 
 attributed to manuring, except in the least degree, 
 because, in fact, this expedient, so far as corn 
 growing was concerned, was practised in minimo. 
 
 Eighthly : That Jethro Tull’s method of unin- 
 termitten t corn growing, without manure, was 
 simply a reformed adaptation of the old bus- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 208 
 
 bandry ; and that in the actual practice of that 
 method, he proved the truth of the following pro- 
 positions, viz. that the then newly originated theory 
 of change of species being a necessity in field culture, 
 was a fallacy, since his own crops instead of falling 
 off became yearly more abundant ; that not only was 
 his mode of working the land a substitute for 
 manure, but more than a substitute for old 
 manuring, since increasing fertility was the con- 
 sequence ; and that in point of economy of 
 labour, as well as efficiency of performance, his 
 tillage procedure was every way successful. 
 
 Ninthly : That while Tull’s system of tillage is, 
 as a general scheme, to be regarded as a substi- 
 tute for manure, it in nowise precludes the use of 
 fertilizers, stimulative or contributive, in aid of 
 tillage, where considerations of profit point to 
 their use. 
 
 Tenthly : Referably to instances in Tullian cul- 
 ture, subsequent to Tull’s time, we have submitted 
 a number of experimental cases, of which, it may be 
 said, that without extending our knowledge be- 
 yond what Tull had already taught and practised 
 on a larger scale, they confirm the catholicity, 
 practicability, and profitableness of Tullian corn 
 husbandry. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 209 
 
 It cannot be, however, that the English 
 Farmer will longer leave the momentous pro- 
 blem involved in these propositions to be solved 
 by amateur experiment ; nor less impossible is it 
 to conceive that landlord and agent will be 
 backward to encourage and even stimulate every 
 reasonable attempt on the Tenant’s part to deter- 
 mine whether Tull’s cereal system may or may not 
 be profitably engrafted on modern agriculture. 
 To be convinced that the present forms of Alter- 
 nate Husbandry are pregnant with danger, it is 
 only necessary to peruse with attention the report 
 of a recent most important discussion in the 
 Central Farmers’ Club, in which wide spreading- 
 degeneration of the real qualitative type, in barley 
 as well as clover and turnips, is unequivocally 
 asserted on the most conclusive evidence. See 
 extracts, No. II. of the Appendix. In the 
 Appendix will likewise be found quotations from 
 a beautifully written article, inculcating a modified 
 adoption of Tullian corn husbandry, and con- 
 ceived in the true spirit of Tullian science and 
 practice. Its author is believed to be Mr. J. A. 
 Clarke, whose experiment forms No. 7 of the 
 Table at p. 152. 
 
 r 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 210 
 
 In conclusion, it has also been seen, that 
 amongst the many early opponents of Tull’s teach- 
 ings, both as to what has since been received into 
 practice, and as to what, without trial, has hitherto 
 been refused admission, none were more zealous 
 or influential than Arthur Young. But Young’s 
 fate it was, in the course of a long and eminently 
 useful life of nearly eighty years," to see thin sow- 
 ing, drilling, and fallow culture, all on Tull’s 
 principles, introduced into the practice of every 
 enlightened farmer in England and Scotland. 
 
 Who, therefore, will not admire the gener- 
 ous spirit of candour which prompted Young 
 in the noonday of his own celebrity, to pour 
 forth at Tull’s shrine, the following eloquent 
 and just panegyric oh departed genius. “ I took 
 an opportunity,” says he, in relating one of his 
 agricultural tours through the provinces, in 1794, 
 “ to go to Prosperous farm, once the estate and 
 residence of Jethro Tull, which he has rendered 
 for ever famous by a work that will unquestion- 
 ably carry his name to the latest posterity. Here 
 it was that he practised and registered that drill- 
 culture, which has been the origin of so many 
 
 * He was born in 1741, and died on February 20, 1820. 
 
TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 211 
 
 experiments, and the basis of so many publica- 
 tions in almost every language in Europe. It 
 came, on his death, to his son John Tull, who, 
 dissipating the inheritance, sold it, and died with- 
 out leaving any representative to continue the 
 name and family of a man that had rendered 
 himself so interesting to multitudes. That he 
 was a real genius cannot he doubted. Though 
 drilling in idea was known before he was born, 
 and a drill plough invented, yet there are no 
 registers of any practice published to enable us 
 positively to conclude that it was executed in any 
 extent ; and in all probability Tull knew not of 
 those drills, and fairly invented his. He not only 
 did this, but carried the husbandry into full prac- 
 tice upon this farm of Prosperous to the extent 
 of 120 acres of wheat for the last two or three 
 years of his farming ; and drilled thirteen [wheat] 
 crops in succession. It is a question whether his 
 mode ever received any material improvements 
 after his death, and whether any other person 
 ever practised it with a success equal to his, 
 which are an extraordinary proof, not of talents 
 only, but of perseverance and firmness of resolu- 
 tion ; and he did this under the pressure of most 
 painful diseases, which confined him much to his 
 
212 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF TILLAGE AND MANURING. 
 
 house. Every part of his works manifests strong 
 talents and no inconsiderable learning ; and he 
 has left a name in the world which probably will 
 last as long as the globe we inhabit .” — Annals of 
 Agriculture, Yol. xxiii. p. 172. 
 
 This great benefactor of mankind died on the 
 21st of March, 1741 ; and assuming his age to 
 have been thirty-five when in 1701, (ten years 
 after leaving the bar,) he went abroad, he thus 
 must have borne up against his acute sufferings, 
 for more than three score years and ten. An 
 author of the last century, happily termed 
 
 him “ THAT VENERABLE HUSBANDMAN, JETHRO 
 
 Tell.” 
 
APPENDIX No. I. 
 
 Extract from an Article on Tullian Husbandry, 
 entitled “ Lois Weedon, without the Spade," in Vol. 
 xiii. of The Farmer’s Journal, 1858, p. 386. 
 
 [It may preliminarily be explained, that the 
 author of this excellent paper, in the first place, 
 takes for illustration the case of a tillage-farm of 
 three hundred acres arable, worked by fourteen 
 horses, and cropped under a five-course rotation, 
 giving yearly the following proportions of crop : — 
 
 acres. 
 
 Winter wheat 60 
 
 Spring ditto 30 
 
 —90 
 
 Barley or Oats 30 
 
 Pulse and Potatoes 60 
 
 —90 
 
 Boots or Fallow 60 
 
 Clover 60 
 
 300 
 
11 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 And, secondly, in order to demonstrate the practi- 
 cability, and probable advantage, of subjecting a 
 considerable portion, at least, of the area of 
 improved farms to successive wheat growing, on 
 Tull’s system, he proposes that, for this purpose, 
 two-fifths of the farm, tabulated above, (i.e., one 
 hundred and twenty acres,) should be withdrawn 
 from alternate husbandry, leaving the other three- 
 fifths (one hundred and eighty acres) to be 
 managed as before. Thus : — 
 
 UNDER TULLIAN TTLLAGE. 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 Winter Wheat 120 
 
 UNDER COMMON TILLAGE. 
 
 Winter Wheat 36 
 
 Spring ditto 3 8 
 
 54 
 
 Barley or Oats 18 
 
 — 72 
 
 Pulse and Potatoes 36 
 
 Roots or Fallow 36 
 
 — 72 
 
 Clover 36 
 
 300 
 
 What follows is in this accomplished agricul- 
 turist’s own words.] 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 HI 
 
 “ Were we to farm” he says, “on the Lois Weedon principle, 
 having two-fifths of our land in three-row wheat, we should 
 have the remaining three-fifths under suitable green crops 
 and spring corn ; but, for the sake of avoiding calculations 
 as to the apportionment of labour at different seasons 
 among the crops in such a new order of succession or 
 rotation, we suppose the three-fifths to be managed precisely 
 as though it were a farm to itself under the present hus- 
 bandry. These 180 acres would have two-fifths — that is, 
 72 acres — wheat, &e., ploughed for, as at present, requiring 
 eighteen or twenty days’ work of the fourteen horses. Our 
 total seedtime will be altogether ten or twelve days longer 
 than before ;* against which we must remember that there 
 will be less of other work than formerly, owing to the 
 diminished area of the other varieties of cropping. 
 
 “ During the latter part of October, November, and De- 
 cember — beginning directly the young wheat is well up, and 
 taking advantage of periods of dry weather — the deep-working 
 of the fallow intervals must be done. We find that one set 
 of five horses effects this on 10 acres in the course of two 
 
 * Working and sowing 120 acres under Tullian 
 
 husbandry . . 34 days. 
 
 ,, ,, 72 „ „ common 20 ,, 
 
 192 
 
 Total time inquired to work and sow 192 acres 
 yearly, in corn, under the proposed mixed 
 
 system 54 
 
 Working and sowing, in the common manner, 
 the 120 acres, which would, yearly, be in corn 
 under the rotation system first tabulated. ... 42 
 
 Longer time required by the proposed mixed 
 system 12 
 
IV 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 days ; consequently two sets, or ten horses out of our four- 
 teen, would finish the 120 acres in twelve days. The 
 principal tillage operation on the other portions of the farm 
 that would be a little delayed in consequence is only the 
 ploughing of 72 acres of stubble for pidse cropping or for 
 fallow. 
 
 “ As we shall see when we come to describe our process, 
 only half of each interval is subsoiled the first time ; and in 
 January and February, or directly suitable weather follows 
 the snow and frost, the same amount of horse-labour is 
 required to complete the deep tillage which we adopt in place 
 of digging. This latter twelve days’ work for two-thirds of 
 our horses comes just at the time when spring corn has to be 
 sown ; but bear in mind that we have 14 horses, the full 
 allowance for 300 acres arable, while (owing to the permanent 
 setting apart of two-fifths of the farm for Lois Weedon wheat) 
 the breadth of spring cropping is only that proper to a 180 
 acre farm — that is, three-fifths of the extent which would be 
 grown were the whole 300 acres in rotation. Instead of 90 
 acres of beans and peas, oats, and barley or potatoes, there 
 will be only 54 acres ; and the time saved by having 36 acres 
 less to get in, will go far towards sparing the teams for the 
 second subsoilrng of our wheat. 
 
 “ Tolerably dry weather being a necessary preliminary 
 to each of these operations, not only for the purpose of 
 effectively breaking-up the subsoil, but also to avoid “ maul- 
 ing ” the wheat-rows and puddling the surface with the 
 horses’ feet ; it may be objected that the weather will pre- 
 clude our deep tillage, except in a remarkably dry season. 
 We have had only two winters’ experience ; the present one 
 unprecedented for absence of downfall and scantiness of water 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 V 
 
 in ponds, wells, and drains. But in November, 1856, our 
 first operation was stopped by rain and then snow, after 
 half-a-day’s work ; in December it was completed, though 
 needlessly done when the ground was too wet. The second 
 operation was performed in February, and this note was 
 made at the time — “ Several tine days before, on which the 
 work might have been done ; and if postponed, there were 
 still several more fine drys which would have given an 
 opportunity.” This last winter the first operation was well 
 done in December after prolonged dry weather, and the 
 second was done in February after many days in which the 
 soil would have broken up equally well, and succeeded by 
 plenty of bright open weather. Supposing a heavy fall of 
 rain to follow the wheat-seeding and snow-blasts to occur, 
 with other weather unsuitable to the drying of the ground, 
 there would necessarily be a delay in accomplishing the 
 tillage ; but as it is during a frost that the exposure of the 
 subsoil is most desirable, we can very well wait until any 
 “ great wets ” are over. We shall have the range of at least 
 two-and-a-balf months in which to get our first twelve days’ 
 work, though on an average half the number of days in these 
 months are more or less “ rainy and our second twelve 
 days’ work must be caught during January and February 
 when the weather is not at all more propitious. 
 
 “ Rolling the wheat in March will take up very little of 
 the horse-power of the farm. Scarifying the fallow intervals 
 in April or May occupies three horses for two days in doing 
 our 10 acres, so that two sets of three each would finish 120 
 acres in twelve days, or twelve horses (working four imple- 
 ments) in six days. This will not much interfere with the 
 fallowing and other business going on upon the 180 acres. 
 
VI 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 “Horse-hoeing the intervals in May, again in June, or 
 whenever required, will he a short matter ; for one horse 
 finishes our 10 acres within one and three-quarter days, 
 consequently four horses would hoe 120 acres in about 
 five days. 
 
 “ Hand-hoeing and weeding the wheat stripes may be 
 reckoned upon as demanding about the same labour as a 
 similar number of acres on the common system, the wider 
 spaces favouring the annual weeds, though there is less 
 ground to be gone over. Employing a horse-hoe would, of 
 course, diminish both labour and expense. 
 
 “ In yoking the horses so as not to trample the wheat, in 
 adjusting the scarifier so as to avoid casting clods upon the 
 plants on each side, in arranging the reaping of such narrow- 
 strips of awkwardly-standing com, there are little exercises 
 of judgment called for; but our own experience proves that 
 the whole management from beginning to end, is so simple 
 that any good labourer engaged throughout one year may 
 understand and properly execute the operations of the next. 
 
 “ For carrying off heaps of rubbish that may be raked or 
 picked, and also for leading on manurial top dressings, &c., a 
 “ quarter cart ” is necessary — that is, a cart with shafts fixed 
 in front of one wheel, so that the horse “ quarters,” walking 
 in the same track as the wdieel, thus making a road of the 
 “ intervals ” only. And for rolling the wheat rows or fallow 
 intervals, as the case may be, it is requisite to have a roller 
 made in two short pieces, arranged on one axle, but with a 
 distance between them, the shafts being removable, in order 
 that the horses (in length) may walk either in the middle or 
 before one of the rollers, as required. Only these two new 
 implements need be constructed for our Lois Weedon wheat- 
 
APPKNDIX. 
 
 Vll 
 
 growing, the ordinary plough, subsoiler, scarifier, horse-hoe, 
 ridge-harrow, and drill, answering every other purpose. 
 
 “ Still further, as to the practicability of growing 120 acres 
 of wheat, on the stripe system, upon a farm having 300 
 acres arable, it may be observed that the proposed mode of 
 culture effectually provides for the eradication of couch and 
 other creeping or perennial roots. Bunches of couch, docks 
 thistles, &c., may be dug out of the stubble after harvest, or 
 from the rows of the growing crop ; and the fallow intervals 
 (embracing just half of the land) are stirred, pulverized, and 
 the root-weeds picked off But should the surface become 
 thoroughly infested, in spite of all, the foulness may be 
 extirpated after harvest, by paring and scarifying the whole 
 breadth of the land, and harrowing lengthwise and crosswise 
 too ; obliterating the stubble-rows, it is true, and so taking 
 away the guide-marks for the next drilling, but not preventing 
 us (as we shall seel from hitting the right intervals, with our 
 method of gauging the drill-row distances. But, seeing that 
 each portion of the ground is summer or bare fallowed every 
 other year, no apprehension need arise of overmastery by 
 ill weeds. 
 
 “ One minor difficulty we have not yet removed — head- 
 lands at both ends of a field are indispensable, for the 
 horses and implements to turn on, in the winter, spring, and 
 summer tillage ; and no vegetable seems to covet the frequent 
 rough usage of such a situation. Are we to try for a few 
 stray ears of wheat, or plant potatoes with a coating of manure ? 
 leave the headlands to themselves, with the exception of 
 cutting up weeds ? or lay them down to permanent seeds ?” 
 
 The author having thus expounded the general principles 
 of his plan, next goes into the following operative details. 
 
Till 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 “ First, then, we would say, believe in the principle : rely 
 upon the fact that tilling the fallow intervals does really 
 nourish and augment the growth and produce of the wheat. 
 For if uncertain on this point, you are sure to select a field 
 for trial in too high a condition ; the result being an early 
 over-luxuriance and final failure of the first year’s crop. 
 Land in condition for producing a heavy crop of wheat on 
 the ordinary plan (as, for instance, a bare fallow, a field of 
 roots highly manured, a bean or pea stubble, or a piece of 
 seeds richly dressed with dung or sheep-feeding) is too good 
 to begin upon. Rather choose an oat stubble, perhaps a 
 barley or even a wheat stubble — depending upon the known 
 nature of your soil, and its being in or out of “ heart.” 
 
 “ Also, make up your mind to sow earlier than you would 
 any other wheat, because there are less than half the com- 
 mon number of rows on an acre ; which with the same 
 quantity of seed in each row, makes a very thin seeding, and 
 of course more than double the usual average space between, 
 plant and plant — a condition of things likely to end in mil- 
 dew unless you sow early to prevent it. And besides, the 
 great distances apart promote the stooling or tillering of 
 the plants, the branching of the root, and shooting up of 
 additional stems (which, indeed, forms one of the secrets of 
 a good crop), and you will lose both in quantity and quality 
 of corn unless time be allowed for this process to transpire 
 before the advanced spring. So the preparation must take 
 place very soon after harvest. 
 
 “ Well, the “ shack ” being eaten off by sheep and pigs, 
 and the stubble (if after a straw crop) carried away, of course 
 you will autumn-clean thoroughly ; forking out couch, if the 
 land be only slightly tainted ; but, most probably, skimming, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ]X 
 
 cross-cultivating, and raking off weeds and rubbish. Plough 
 say one inch deeper than usual, in order to bring up 100 
 tons of fresh long-undisturbed subsoil, to supply the crop 
 with mineral nutriment during the first year. Level and 
 pulverize with the harrow and roll ; carefully pick all root- 
 weeds ; and then comes the drilling. But mind one 
 particular point. “Plough dry and sow wet,” as Mr. Smith 
 says : that is, do all your paring and ploughing, or ploughing 
 followed by scuffling, or whatever order of cleaning you 
 adopt, when the land is dry ; and wait for rain to make a 
 moist seed-bed, before you harrow fine and drill. Getting-in 
 wheat well is always a great advantage ; but is of far more 
 consequence, one would think, when there is no store of 
 manure in the soil to make up for defective tillage, and the 
 preparation and treatment of the earth itself is to be the sole 
 support of the crop. Therefore, be nice about the moisture 
 as well as the fine tilth of the ground into which you deposit 
 the seed ; and take especial care to cut-in deeply enough 
 with your drill coulters. A remark as to the desirability of 
 having a fine description of seed (“ red ”) for the sake of a 
 bright silica-shielded straw, unless in a district famous for 
 white wheats without mildew, and the caution of well liming, 
 brining, or dressing with arsenic or vitriol — according to your 
 custom — need not be addressed to men of business. 
 
 “ Now for the sowing. There is to be a stripe of three 
 rows at every five feet ; the “ spaces” between the rows being 
 10 inches each, (instead of Mr. Smith’s “ foot”), and the 
 “ interval” between the stripes, therefore, 40 inches. You 
 want neither the slow line and dibble, nor a sort of parallel 
 rule wheel “ marker” purposely constructed ; for a good 5 or 
 6-feet corn drill, either with a “ steerage,” or with a “ swing” 
 
X 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 coulter-bar and a good man for “ leader,” can accomplish the 
 feat. Arrange four coulters on the drill thus : two at 60 
 inches apart, and, within these, two more at 40 inches apart ; 
 making the distances in this order, 10 inches, 40 inches, and 
 10 inches, Each outside coulter will make the middle row 
 in a stripe of three; and the inner coulters will sow the 
 rows next the fallow interval, the horses (in length) walking 
 along this space left midway of the drill. When arrived at 
 the end, the drill is to turn short, the outside coulter return- 
 ing in its own track ; and the seed is shut off from the pipe 
 of that outside coulter next the unsown part of the field, so 
 that the outside coulters act alternately as “ markers ” and 
 sowing-coulters. In this way, the drill marks out its own 
 work, without any difficulty after the first course — which the 
 drill-leader “ draws ” by simple eyesight. Whatever swervings 
 or bends may occur, the width of the interval to be cultivated 
 is always invariable. 
 
 “ The next year’s crop will have to be sown along the 
 intervals between the stubble-strips ; and the same mode of 
 drilling will suffice, provided the stubble rows remain visible, 
 at least in some parts of the field. How then, do we 
 manage to autumn-clean the ground? 
 
 “ Having harrowed up the thickest of the stubble (which 
 must be left very short by the reapers), stir the fallow inter- 
 vals with Bentall’s, Coleman’s, or some other scarifier set as 
 narrow as required ; and harrow them two at a time, by 
 means of two out of a “ set ” of three harrows — that is, the 
 middle one removed, so as to miss the stubble space. 
 Rolling may be done over the whole surface ; or a roller 
 made on purpose, in two short lengths with a space between, 
 may be employed. The stubble being pretty plainly seen, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 xi 
 
 is a sufficient guide-mark for the drillmen, who cannot get 
 far wrong when the first stroke has been taken in the right 
 place, and if the land is in a fine state and dark with 
 moisture. The seed may be harrowed-in with harrows 
 covering all the ground. Should the stubble stripes be 
 peculiarly free of couch, perhaps forking out the tufts may 
 suffice : but we must be prepared for cleansing them when 
 foul ; and therefore have contrived how to pare or scarify 
 them without interfering with the drilling. When the drill 
 has begun to work, follow it with the broadsharer set only 
 about 22 inches wide — not in the track of the drill, of course ; 
 but breaking up the stubble lines between the intervals just 
 sown. We find that this operation does not displace or 
 root-up the seed ; and after it any amount of harrowing and 
 rolling, lengthwise and crosswise, may loosen and shake out 
 the root-weeds, without fear for the wheat in tolerably dry 
 weather. Only this must be done before the grains have 
 chitted ; or, at any rate, before the germs reach the surface. 
 
 “ The quantity of seed per acre depends, like the time of 
 sowing, upon whereabouts you farm : being regulated by the 
 quality of your soil, its altitude and aspect, its tendency as 
 to weeds, its liability to worms and slugs, the peculiarities of 
 your climate, the character of the particular season you may 
 have, even the proximity of your holding to harbours of birds 
 and vermin. What is early in one situation, may not be so 
 in another ; what is thin seeding in one neighbourhood, is 
 thought thick in another. As an example, take our own 
 case : November being the great wheat-sowing month with 
 us, our present crop was got in the first week of October. 
 In ordinary husbandry we drill 6 to 10 pecks per acre, the 
 former quantity at the beginning of the season, when every 
 
XI 1 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 kernel will have a chance ; gradually increasing the amount 
 as the period of sowing gets later : at the same time putting 
 in more on poor than on rich land. Mr. Smith tried only 1 
 peck, hut “ for safety and the sake of the sample,” now uses 
 2 pecks an acre. Our tillage being less perfect than his, 
 and the plants lying open to greater injury from horses’ 
 treading, &c., we deemed it best to drill 3 pecks per 
 acre. This appears hut a small quantity ; yet Mr. Smith’s 
 experience with a thicker seeding has shown that the stalks 
 are too many and weak to bear up their bulky heads erect. 
 And consider, that as the average distance between our rows 
 (taken over the entire held), is 20 inches, we have less than 
 half the number of rows that common 9-inch drilling gives 
 us ; and thus our 3 pecks an acre puts as much seed in 
 every single row as about 7 pecks does in plain drilling. In 
 fact, we drill with the same cog-wheel on the cup-barrel for 
 both cases. 
 
 “When your wheat is well up, and the triple-row emerald 
 stripes are beautiful from end to end, comes the hrst really 
 Tullian operation, namely, the ploughing along the 40 inch 
 intervals. With a common plough, and horses “ in length ” 
 (a boy leading the first horse), plough a single furrow down 
 each interval, going, say 4 inches deep. Aiming to keep the 
 coulter 6 inches from the wheat-row on his left-hand side, 
 the ploughman has no difficulty in taking his furrow within 
 4 to 7 inches of the wheat, a latitude of deviation from the 
 true line that must be allowed him ; and the upturned slice 
 has just room to fall over, short of the wheat on the opposite 
 side of the interval. Very few clods will be found to roll and 
 bury the young plant. 
 
 “ Break up the bottom of every furrow with a proper 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 XIII 
 
 subsoil, penetrating 5 or 0 inches, according to the strength 
 of your team. We use Bentall’s broad-sharer with the side 
 beams removed, a 0-inch share on the heel, and subsoil point 
 in front, this going at least 5 inches down with 3 horses. 
 The total depth below the surface is thus 9 or 10 inches. 
 When the same intervals come under operation again (that 
 is, in two years time), we may perhaps work still deeper, and 
 it may be with a double-tined instead of single subsoiler. 
 The horses, of course, are all harnessed in length, walking 
 upon the furrow bottom. 
 
 “ Leave the field thus treated (looking lengthwise like a 
 wheat crop, and crosswise like a trenched-up fallow, remind- 
 ing me of those corrugated pictures presenting two views at 
 different angles), and let the frost and snow, wind, rain, and 
 drying sunshine exert their forces upon it. And observe 
 how large an extent of superfices is exposed ; for not only 
 can the atmosphere enter 9 inches down into the subsoil, 
 but the furrow-slices thrown up at an angle, almost double 
 the area of surface in the intervals. 
 
 “ In January and February, taking the chance of suitable 
 weather, the same tillage is to be repeated, only on the other 
 side of each interval. The plough turns back the pulveru- 
 lent furrow slice of the former operation, covering over the 
 long exposed broken subsoil in the old furrow, and going 
 four inches deep below the surface level, casts up upon the 
 top a new slice of stiff unmellowed soil for the weather to 
 act upon as before. The horses are obliged to walk along 
 the old furrow, treading down the crumbled subsoil ; but (as 
 it has become so friable,) not inflicting much damage by 
 compression. The newly-opened furrow must be subsoiled 
 as before, and left in this exposed state. 
 
 Q 
 
XIV 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 “ So far, your tillage lias provided a supply of more or less 
 pulverized earth nine or ten inches in depth, on both sides 
 of every interval, and within a few inches’ reach of the 
 wheat rootlets. And if you comprehend Jethro Tull’s 
 teaching, you will understand that soil more or less pul- 
 verized by atmospheric action must be necessarily more or 
 less “ fertilized hence, your growing plants will have 
 close at hand a deep store of nutriment, on which to feed 
 during the summer. The difference, you perceive, between 
 our method and ordinary subsoiling, lies in the circum- 
 stance that every one of the subsoiled furrows remains open 
 and exposed, instead of being immediately buried by a 
 succeeding furrow-slice. And it is not a mere deep stirring 
 without inversion as performed by the tines of a subsoiler or 
 cultivator ; neither is it a complete inverting of the staple 
 and subsoil, as in double-digging or trench-ploughing, that 
 u r e practise. But the staple (that is, a 4-inch sti’atum of it) 
 is inverted, and removed by the plough off the subsoil that lies 
 beneath ; and the subsoil is then torn to pieces, and submit- 
 ted to the disintegration of our changeful English weather. 
 
 “ As far as you have proceeded at present, half the land is 
 in undisturbed possession of the wheat rows ; and the 
 alternate halves, or intervals, are deep-worked on both sides. 
 But as the plough opens a furrow having only 7 or 8 inches 
 of clear bottom, and the subsoiler breaks horizontally only a 
 few inches further toward the centre of the intervals, there 
 will still be a ridge of unmoved ground along the middle of 
 the interval some 10 inches in width. Therefore, in April 
 or May, break up this, and stir the whole breadth of the 
 interval with any suitable subsoiler or grubber. We use 
 Bentall’s implement, the central subsoiler, and two side-tines, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 XV 
 
 without shares ; the width altogether being 20 inches, The 
 side wheels are set so as to travel in between the wheat rows, 
 acting at the same time partially as rollers to press in the 
 wheat. The depth worked with three horses on our soil is 
 5 or 6 inches, which moves the entire breadth of the interval, 
 levelling the high furrow-slice left by the February operation, 
 and mingling and incorporating a considerable portion of the 
 ameliorated subsoil with the upper staple. And in this way, 
 some of the previous surface-mould is replaced by portions of 
 subsoil ; and these kept upon the top, and subjected to all the 
 scarifyings and horse-hoeings, the rain, dew, wind, and sun, 
 of a summer and autumnal fallowing, add so much virgin 
 soil to our field, and deepen its productive stratum. 
 
 “ By way of further direction, we scarcely need insist upon 
 the watchful destruction of weeds that thieve the nourish- 
 ment provided for the crop, or urge the frequent cutting of 
 the incrusting intervals by the sharpe-knived horse-hoe, to 
 promote the absorption of the atmospheric gifts, and pulverize 
 a rich surface-bed for the spreading wheat-roots to feed in. 
 And of course, the wise husbandman will time this stimu- 
 lating operation according to the obvious thriving or lagging 
 growth of the plants, and will narrow the width of the 
 implement as the season advances and the roots extend. 
 
 “ If possible, have the intervals in a state of powder, say by 
 the middle of June ; as you should perform another opera- 
 tion when the wheat is in full-ear or going out of bloom, 
 namely, earth-up the wheat rows as you would potatoes, only 
 with care and moderation. This may be done with a ridge 
 or double-mouldboard plough, the horse being driven and 
 guided by a lad walking along the next adjoining interval. 
 Owing to excessive draught, our intervals last summer were 
 
XVI 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 too rough and cloddy to admit of this process being done at 
 all ; and as the seed had been imperfectly put in the ground, 
 many odd stalks in the outer-rows were dashed down by the 
 July storms, bent an inch or two above ground, and laid 
 prostrate across the intervals. Gathering up these straws 
 made tedious work for the reapers, and the grain in them 
 was also light. Earthing-up slightly, Mr. Smith finds, will 
 prevent this, without injury or retarding the ripening of the 
 corn. But the stems are stronger than in a common crop, 
 and though liable to twisting and whipping by the winds, 
 are rarely found to lodge. 
 
 “ You will probably be puzzled about the best way of 
 harvesting : the three-row strips being too narrow for mow- 
 ing, and if reaped, the stubble when afterwards mown, would 
 be only scattered and dispersed by the scythe. We paid 
 our men extra to reap with hooks or sickles rather close to 
 the ground, and collect the many stalks that lay athwart the 
 intervals ; and they had to leave separate “ reaps ” or hand- 
 bills along each stripe to be afterwards gathered into sheaves. 
 
 “ The subjoined items of expenditure on our 10-acre crop 
 will give an idea of the cost of the operations now described. 
 Manual-labour is charged at the price paid for it ; and horse- 
 labour at half-a-crown a day for each horse. The expenses, 
 divided by 10, give per acre as follows : — 
 
 s. D. 
 
 Scarifying, cleaning, drilling, See 16 0 
 
 Seed, 3 peeks (at 56s.) 5 3 
 
 Bird-keeping 0 4 
 
 First ploughing and subsoiling 3 8 
 
 Second ditto 3 8 
 
 Hand-hoeing wheat 1 10 
 
 Scarifying intervals 1 10 
 
 Hoe-weeding by hand 3 4 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 XVll 
 
 First horse-hoeing intervals 0 9 
 
 Second ditto 0 10 
 
 Reaping 13 0 
 
 Surveying reaper’s work 0 3 
 
 Carrying, &o 1 11 
 
 Thrashing and dressing 8 1 
 
 Delivering at market 1 9 
 
 Total working expenses £3 2 0 
 
 To which, of course, are added the rent, tithe, rates, taxes, 
 and interest on outlay. And this is the cost of growing an 
 acre of wheat, and at the same time fallowing that acre for 
 next year's crop. 
 
 “ It now remains for us, in concluding this series of papers, 
 to urge the experiment upon all who are desirous of growing 
 wheat at a profit, in spite of low prices. And should our 
 second harvest corroborate the assurance of the first, we 
 shall be able to enforce the adoption of the system on the 
 largest scale.” 
 
XY111 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX No. II. 
 
 Extracts from the Report of a Discussion in the 
 Central Farmers’ Club, London, on the Question — 
 What system of Cultivation upon mixed, soils wilt, under 
 present circumstances, he found most profitable ? 
 
 “ Mr. Thomas, of Bletsoe, presided, supported by Messrs. 
 Owen Wallis, H. Trethewy, J. Pain, James Wood, W. Fisher 
 Hobbs, S. Skelton, L. A. Coussmaker, T. Congreve, J. Gray, 
 R. Marsh, G. Smythies, J. Cressingham, J. Wood (Croydon), 
 
 C. J. Brickwell, W. Heard, J. Beddoe, J. Hooker, J. S. King, 
 F. J. Baines, J. Parkinson, J. C. Morton, T. Lyall, J. Maund, 
 
 D. Reid, IT. Gibbons, P. F. Pell, &c. 
 
 “ In the absence of Mr. Baker, of Writtle, from illness, 
 the subject was introduced by Mr. Owen Wallis, of Over- 
 stone Grange, Northampton. 
 
 “ Mr. Wallis, after expressing his regret at the cause of 
 Mr. Baker’s absence, and claiming the indulgence of the 
 meeting for himself, as having unexpectedly been called 
 upon to take up a question which was assigned to another 
 member, proceeded as follows : — ' The subject for discussion 
 as proposed by Mr. Baker, is — “ What system of cultivation 
 upon mixed soils will, under present circumstances, be found most 
 profitable ?" This is by no means an easy question to 
 answer ; it is not easy to give an answer to it that will not 
 be open to dispute. There can be no means of proving 
 the superiority of one system over another, until they have 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 XIX 
 
 been tried one against the other, under the same circum- 
 stances and conditions, for a number of years, and accurate 
 accounts of the profit and loss of each faithfully recorded. 
 This, however, has never been done, that I am aware of ; 
 and even if it had, other circumstances would have to be 
 taken into account which might render the trial anything 
 but conclusive. For instance, one system, though at first 
 the most profitable, might contain within itself the seeds 
 of its own destruction by exhausting the soil of certain 
 properties essential to the production of healthy crops ; while 
 the other, by the non-exhaustion of those properties, might 
 be continued for an indefinite period. The question, then, 
 becomes one of opinion only, and not of positive proof. We 
 may, however, from the information which our daily obser- 
 vations afford us, form pretty correct conclusions ; and 
 I think it is now very generally agreed, that on light soils 
 the four-course system can no longer be defended, but that 
 a more extended rotation must be adopted, in order that the 
 turnip and seed crops may be sown less frequently, and by 
 that means, it is hoped, grown more successfully. That 
 this opinion is rapidly gaining ground, is shewn by previous 
 discussions at this Club. It is also apparent from the 
 proceedings of the Royal Agricultural Society of England ; 
 for in the schedule of prizes last issued is one of Twenty 
 Sovereigns ‘ for the best report on the modifications of the 
 four-course rotation which modern improvements have ren- 
 dered advisable.’ There is also another prize of Twenty 
 Sovereigns, * for the best report on the causes of the 
 increasing difficulties of turnip cultivation, and the reme- 
 dies.’ Every year, indeed, brings additional evidence of 
 the necessity of a change ; for, notwithstanding the assist- 
 
XX 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ance we have derived of late years by the use of artificial 
 manures, the turnip crop is becoming rapidly more pre- 
 carious, and is deteriorating both as to weight and quality. 
 The difficulty as to the clover plant has long been felt ; but, 
 great as the loss from its failure has been, we have found 
 less difficulty, on the generality of farms, in keeping our 
 stock in summer without clover, than in winter without 
 turnips. Now, however, that the double difficulty has come 
 upon us, we have no alternative but to look about for a 
 remedy. But there is not only this difficulty as to the 
 green crops ; there is an equal deficiency in the barley. 
 On most of the farms with which I am acquainted that 
 crop has fallen off nearly one-third in quantity, and the 
 quality is inferior in comparison with former years. Six 
 quarters per acre used to be obtained where four can only 
 be got now, and this, too, with the land in a much higher 
 state of cultivation than formerly. It used to be strong 
 and reedy in the straw, and stand up till ripe ; but now, it 
 is no sooner a few inches high than it tumbles about in all 
 directions ; and, though in appearance a great crop, there 
 is in reality nothing but a lot of soft weak straw and about 
 two-thirds of a crop of inferior corn. Its effects upon the 
 young clover seeds are very injurious. Those that live are 
 very much weakened, and a great part of the plant is often 
 lost altogether. It being, therefore, apparent that a more 
 extended rotation of cropping must be adopted, we have to 
 inquire what other is likely to prove the best substitute for 
 the four-course one. On ordinary soils, the extension of 
 the white corn crops should, I think, depend upon the 
 amount of artificial food, or purchased manures, used upon 
 the farm, unless they are accompanied by a corresponding 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 XXI 
 
 increase in the green crops. There can be neither reason nor 
 justice in restricting one tenant, who uses these very liberally, 
 to the same covenants as to cropping as you do another who 
 either uses them sparingly, or not at all. A departure from 
 one general rule may give some trouble to agents on large 
 estates ; but cases ought nevertheless to be dealt with on 
 their own merits, and the good and the had tenants no 
 longer tied down by the same restrictions. * * * 
 
 “ Mr. J. Pain (Felmersham, Bedfordl said he quite agreed 
 with Mr. Wallis, that the system of growing turnips once 
 in four years, on light land, was not a good one. If not 
 yet abandoned, he believed it soon would be, as the cultiva- 
 tion came round too frequently for the turnips and for the 
 clovers. On his own farm he had carried out a different 
 system for the last three or four years. Pie could hardly 
 get any turnips at all ; and, therefore, he adopted a six- 
 course shift, which he believed afforded a little better chance. 
 What they called turnip land was quite sick of turnips ; and 
 the best remedy was, in many cases, to sow mangold instead 
 of turnips. 
 
 “ Mr. L. A. Coussmaker (Farnham) could corroborate 
 what Mr. Pain had said in reference to the general failure 
 of the turnip crop.” “ He found that he could not 
 grow tares as he used to do. In the course of his twenty 
 years’ farming, his farm had, he considered, been very much 
 improved. He had manured it strongly ; still he could not 
 grow green crops, roots, or tares as he did formerly. Man- 
 gold wurzel was an exception ; that did not deteriorate : if 
 he put on plenty of dressing, he never found it to fail. * * 
 
 Mr. Smithies (Marlow, Leintwardine) said, “ he felt per- 
 sonally very much obliged to Mr. Wallis for his able 
 
XXII 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 introduction, and he hoped it would induce landlords to 
 allow good tenants to farm more in accordance with their 
 own notions, instead of the notions of some lawyer in a 
 small town, or rather, of his great grandfather. (Laughter.) 
 The time had certainly come when those who farmed 
 high could not farm on the four-course system. He had 
 himself been obliged to depart from that system on account 
 of his barley having gone down, a loss of that kind being, 
 in a stock country like his, a very serious matter indeed.” 
 
 “ Mr. Fisher Hobbs, (Boxsted, Essex) thought they were 
 pretty well agreed that the usual mode of cultivating mixed 
 soils, namely, the four-course system, was not the most pro- 
 fitable. He could not lay down any particular mode of 
 cultivation for his own farms, because they consisted of very 
 different soils, and had been remodelled rather with a view 
 to letting than to the adoption of any particular system. It 
 was evident, however, that the four-course system ought now 
 to be considered out of date for mixed soil land ; and he 
 thought all wise landlords must be disposed to give increased 
 facilities for cultivation when they saw intelligence and 
 capital combined in their tenants, so as to enable the occu- 
 pier to grow what the land was really capable of growing.” — 
 “ He had no doubt that the use of salt was in many cases very 
 advantageous ; but he thought wide drilling had quite as 
 much to do with the stiffening of straw as the application of 
 salt. When wheat was drilled 10 or 12 inches wide, he had 
 found the straw much heavier and standing much better 
 than when a different mode of cultivation was pursued. He 
 thought the application of salt, mixed with guano, tended 
 very much to stiffen the straw. 
 
 “ Mr. P. F. Pell (Scopwick, Sleaford, Lincolnshire) said, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 XX111 
 
 for the last three or four years there had been great com- 
 plaints in the part of the country with which he was 
 connected of the failure of the turnip crop ; and he knew 
 that the great bulk of the farmers in the wolds and heaths 
 said that the turnip was much more liable to decay than it 
 used to be. 
 
 “ Mr. 0. Wallis, in replying, said, he could not admit that 
 the failure of the turnip crop was attributable to the use of 
 artificial manures. Some of the worst tubers he had ever 
 seen were on land where no artificial manure at all had been 
 used. He believed the falling-off was owing to the abstrac- 
 tion of some important element from the soil by the too 
 frequent growth of turnips ; and, far from thinking that 
 artificial manures had contributed to it, he was of opinion 
 that the introduction of them had tended very much to keep 
 the turnip afloat. His remarks with regard to straw applied 
 not to wheat, but to barley, Every one was complaining of 
 the failure of the barley crop, both in quantity and quality. 
 
XXIV 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 Table shewing the comparative Rent of Land, and 
 the Acreable Produce of Wheat in 1770 and 
 1850 - 1 . 
 
 The following particulars are taken from tables 
 at pp. 474 and 480 of Caird's English Farming. 
 
 
 1770. 
 
 1850- 
 
 - 1 . 
 
 
 On 
 
 On 
 
 
 
 Arthur Young’s 
 
 Caird’s 
 
 own 
 
 
 Authority. 
 
 Authority. 
 
 
 Eent. 
 
 Prod. 
 
 Pient. 
 
 Prod. 
 
 
 
 in B. 
 
 
 in B. 
 
 Average acreable rent and produce 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 
 of wheat, in fifteen of the inland 
 
 
 
 
 
 and Western counties of England 
 
 
 
 
 
 (the mixed grass and corn dis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 tricts) 
 
 0 14 6 
 
 24* 
 
 1 11 5 
 
 27 
 
 Ditto of eighteen East and South- 
 
 
 
 
 
 west counties, being the chief 
 
 
 
 
 
 corn producing districts 
 
 0 12 8 
 
 21* 
 
 13 8 
 
 26* 
 
 Average .... 
 
 0 13 7* 
 
 23 
 
 1 7 e 
 
 26J 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Acreable Corn Produce of England, at various periods, 30. 
 
 Agriculture, Tull’s propositions in, 23. 
 
 Air, the Food of Plants, 74, 79 ; want of, produces Blight, 81. 
 
 Alternate Husbandry has augmented the national rental, 0 : original 
 reasons for its adoption examined, 130 ; these now modified, 
 ib ; Prolit of, compared with that of Tullian management, 
 
 157. 
 
 Ammonia, a constituent of the atmosphere, 56 ; absorbed by dew, 
 rain, and snow, ib ; is thereby incorporated with the soil, ib ; 
 small proportion of, in the air. 59 ; indispensable to plants, 
 ib ; especially corn plants, ib ; Muriate of, 103; Sulphate, 
 of, ib ; Carbonate of, ib. 
 
 Aqueous Vapour, a component of the atmosphere, 103. 
 
 Assimilation of atmospheric constituents by Plants, 104. 
 
 Atmosphere fertilizes Soils by means of Tillage, 54 ; manuring effects 
 of, 55 ; vegetative agents of the, 79 ; re-action of its oxygen 
 with the tissues of plants, 80 ; its constituents, 102 ; their 
 assimilation by plants, 104 ; its vegetative nutriments inex- 
 haustible, 165. 
 
 Atmospheric agents in Vegetation, 79 ; manures, 104 ; constituents of 
 plants, 107. 
 
 B. 
 
 Balk, or parting Fur, described, 104. 
 
 Balk-ridge, the benefit it receives from the winter frost, 112; its 
 tillage in spring, 113. 
 
 Bare-fallow, its uses, 29. 
 
 Beaman, Mr., his Tullian experiment, 152, 154. 
 
 Bed (Seed), see Seed-bed. 
 
 Blight in Corn, caused by want of nutriment, 81 ; and want of air, 
 ib ; prevented by horse-hoeing, ib ; caused by want of light 
 and heat, 84 ; by insects, 118 ; infects sown more than 
 drilled corn, ib. 
 
 Box, Mr., his Tullian experiment, 152, 154. 
 
 Bread, former and present prices of, 8. 
 
11 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Broadcast Sowing prevents access of air to growing Corn, 82 ; and of 
 light, 84 ; exhausts the soil more than drilled, 99. 
 
 Budd, Mr., his Tullian experiment, 152, 154. 
 
 Butcher-meat, former and present prices of, 8. 
 
 C. 
 
 Carbonate of Ammonia, an artificial special Manure, 163. 
 
 Carbonic Acid, a component of the atmosphere, 56, 163 ; absorbed by 
 dew, rain, and snow, 56 ; is thereby incorporated with the 
 soil, ib ; furnishes carbon to plants, 80. 
 
 Cattle-court Manure, proportion of water in, 5 ; intrinsic value of, 
 uncertain, 6 ; this the only manure used by Tull, 43 ; is a 
 means of pulverizing the soil, 74 ; Rothamsted experiment 
 with, examined, 177. 
 
 Chili Saltpetre, a natural mineral substance, 103. 
 
 Chemico-absorptive property of Soils, 55 ; Thompson’s discovery of, 
 57 ; its effects on ammoniacal substances, ib ; Way’s experi- 
 ment on, 58 ; its effects on other plant nutriments, 60 ; 
 Liebig’s observation on the, 60-63. 
 
 Clarke, J. A. Esq., his Tullian experiment, 152,154,155,100; his 
 paper on Tullian cultivation, Appendix No. I. 
 
 Climatic agents in Vegetation, 75 ; heat and light, 83. 
 
 Clover, its culture not practised by Tull, 35 ; its degeneration in 
 English farming, 12, 138, and Appendix No. II. 
 
 Close, Mi’., his Tullian experiment, 152, 155, 100. 
 
 Corn, the exportation of, in the last century, 16 ; acreable produce of, 
 in England, at various periods, 30 ; tillering of, 89 ; propor- 
 tion of, to straw, greater in horse-hoed wheat, 100 ; and less 
 in sown wheat, ib. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dairy Produce, former and present prices of, 8. 
 
 Dean, Mr., his Tullian experiment, 152, 155, 160. 
 
 Decomposition of the atmospheric and terrestrial constituents of 
 Plants, 164. 
 
 Degeneration, the theory of examined, 184; Tull quoted, 185; the 
 Rothamsted and Holkham experiments cited, 191. 
 
 Depth of Sowing, Tull's opinions on the, 93. 
 
 Dew, condensed in Soils by Tillage, 53 ; experimental instances, ib ; 
 
 absorbs atmospheric oxygen, carbonic acid, and ammonia, 
 56 ; thereby incorporates these gaseous substances with the 
 soil, ib ; its condensation promoted by horse-hoeing, 69 ; 
 falls most in dry weather, ib. 
 
 Drills, see Rows. 
 
 Drill Sowing Machine, invented by Tull, 18 ; history of the inven- 
 tion, 19-23. 
 
 Drill Sowing promotes access of air to growing corn, 83 ; and light. 84 
 
 Drill Husbandry, Tull the inventor of, 33. 
 
 Dung, see Cattle-court manure, also Stercoraceous manure. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 iii 
 
 E. 
 
 Ears of Coin, augmented in number by horse-hoeing, 95, 97. 
 
 Earth, the Food of Plants, 74, 70. 
 
 Earthing up Rows to counteract moor-loose, 110 ; also to prevent 
 lodging through weight, ib. 
 
 Economy of time and labour of Tullian husbandry, 120. 
 
 “ English Agriculture,” Caird’s work cited, 5. 
 
 English Agriculture, (old system; was non-alternate, 15 ; also, all but 
 unmanurial, 15, 40 ; yielded a superabundance for exporta- 
 tion, 15 ; quantities exported, 10. 
 
 Expenses of Tullian cultivation, 155-159 ; of alternate husbandry, 157. 
 
 Epitome of Tull’s method of cultivation, 103. 
 
 Exportation, see English husbandry (old system.) 
 
 Extraneous Manures, see manures. 
 
 Fallow, see Bare-fallow. 
 
 Fallow crop tillage invented by Tull, 34 
 
 Fallow spaces described, 105 ; the summer working of, 114. 
 
 Farm, Tull’s described, 38 ; its extent, 40 ; no store animals kept on 
 it, ib ; nor work animals except oxen, ib. 
 
 Feering the seed bed described, 100-124. 
 
 Folding consolidates loose hollow soils, 117. 
 
 Food of plants defined, 74. 
 
 Fork, see spade. 
 
 Frost and Thaw promote pulverization, 112. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gathering, the, of Tullian ridges described, 104. 
 
 Grains of Corn augmented in number by horse-hoeing, 95 ; in size ib. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hand-hoeing operations, 103; these described, 118. 
 
 Fland-hoes described, 120. 
 
 Heat (solar) an agent in vegetation, 74; its access to the soil pro- 
 moted by drilling, 84; want of such access produces blight, ib. 
 
 Heating the seed bed described, 124. 
 
 Holkham experiments in successive corn growing, cited, 175 ; experi- 
 ments with rape-cake as a manure, cited. 179. 
 
 Hoeing defined, 96; horse-hoeing, 07 ; hand-hoeing, ib. 
 
 Hoeing, husbandry, the advantages of, compared w-ith common tillage, 
 67 ; procures food to the roots, ib ; is destructive of weed, ib. 
 
 Horse-hoeing, Tull, the inventor of, in English farming, 31 ; he took 
 the idea from vineyard culture, ib ; it keeps roots moist in 
 dry weather, 09 ; attracts dew to the soil, ib ; prevents blight, 
 81 ; its benefits in vegetation, 94 ; causes the corn plant to 
 tiller numerously, 95-97 ; augments the size of the ears, 95, 
 96, 97 ; and the number and size of the grains, ' ib ’■ 
 it progressively ameliorates the soil, 98 ; the reason ex- 
 plained, 99 : the processes of, described, 103, 109 ; exter- 
 minates weed, 105 : its economy in corn culture, 120. 
 
IV 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Horse-hoed corn exhausts the soil less than sowed corn, 99. 
 Husbandry (old) of England, 46. 
 
 Husbandry (old) of Scotland, 179. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ice, freezing in the soil, promotes pulverization, 112. 
 Intervals between each drill of the rows, see Rows. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jones, H. Esq., his Tullian experiment, 153, 154, 160. 
 
 L. 
 
 Labour, Economy of, in Tullian Husbandry, 126. 
 
 Liebig on the Cliemico-absorptive property of Soils, 60 ; on the roots 
 of plants, 62, 88 ; his principles of manuring, 166, 197. 
 
 Light (solar) an agent in Vegetation, 74, 83 ; its access to growing 
 plants promoted by drill tillage, 84; want of it produces 
 blight, ib. 
 
 Lime, a terrestrial manure, 164 ; Nitrate of, a natural mineral 
 substance, ib. 
 
 Lodging of Corn a growing evil in Alternate Husbandry, 12, 139 ; 
 caused by nitrogenous manures, 204. 
 
 Lois Weedon experiment cited on Tillering, 94 ; its operative details 
 described, 140, 160 ; its yield in corn, 142, 153,154; con- 
 ducted by the spade or fork, ib ; its claims to originality 
 examined, ib ; the productive results of it and Tull’s farm- 
 ing contrasted, 145 ; expenses of cultivation, 159. 
 
 Loose Soils consolidated by Horse-hoeing Tillage, 117. 
 
 M. 
 
 Magnesia, Nitrate of, 163. 
 
 Mangolds, proportion of water in, 4. 
 
 Manures, rationale of, 41 ; extraneous, 43 ; stercoraceous, ib ; their 
 contributive office, 45 ; their stimulative office, ib ; use or 
 disuse of, left open by Tull, 46 ; should be used in small and 
 frequent quantities, 47 ; should be applied at proper times, 
 68 ; atmospheric manure defined, 163 ; terrestrial, 164. 
 
 Manuring (old methods of) 30 ; Tull’s opinions on, 31. 
 
 Manuring, (modern) Professor Way on, 49; atmospheric. 55 ; Way 
 on, 64 ; special, 65 ; Way on the manuring power of the air 
 116; Liebig’s principles of, 166, 197 ; Rothamsted doctrine of, 
 167, 197. 
 
 Mineral Food of Plants, Way on the, 50. 
 
 Mineral Theory, 166, 197. 
 
 Moor-loose, Tull’s observations on, 116 ; remedy for, ib. 
 
 Multiplication of Roots by severance, 62 ; effects of multiplication, 87. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Muriate of Ammonia, an artificial compound, 163 ; an atmospheric 
 manure, ib. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nitrates of Soda, Potash, Lime, and Magnesia, are natural produc- 
 tions, 103 ; they belong to the class of atmospheric manures, 
 ib. 
 
 Nitre, Tull’s opinions respecting its properties in Vegetation, 74, 79, 
 83. 
 
 Nitric Acid is present in the atmosphere, 163. 
 
 Nitrogen the chief constituent of the atmosphere, 103 ; atmospheric 
 compounds of, ib ; mineral compounds of, ib. 
 
 Nitrogenous Manuring, the rationale of, 107, 196; Liebig on, 107, 200 ; 
 
 industrial value of its use examined, 199; time an element 
 of calculation in this process, ib ; Liebig quoted on this 
 point, 200 ; Tull quoted, ib ; Table of Rotliamsted experi- 
 ments on, 203 ; not unaccompanied by disadvantages, 204 ; 
 these stated, ib ; Caird quoted on this subject, ib : Way also 
 quoted, ib. 
 
 O. 
 
 Old English Husbandry was non -Alternate, 15 ; all but non-mann- 
 rial, ib ; produced a surplus of corn for exportation, ib ; 
 quantities exported, 16. 
 
 Old English system of Tillage described, 27 ; of manuring, 30. 
 
 Old Scottish Husbandry described, 179 ; was non-alternate, ib ; the 
 infield described, 180; the outfield, ib : its manurial system, 
 182. 
 
 Operative details in Tullian Husbandry, Table of, 160. 
 
 Oxygen is a constituent of the atmosphere, 56, 163 : absorbed by 
 dew, rain, and snow, 56 ; is thereby incorporated with the 
 soil, ib. 
 
 P. 
 
 Parting Fur, see Balk. 
 
 Pasture of Plants, Tull’s definition of the, 72. 
 
 Phosphoric Acid, absorbed from solution by soils, 60 ; is a terrestrial 
 food of plants, 161. 
 
 Plough, acreahle produce of Tullian culture by the, 152, 154 ; ex- 
 penses of Tullian cultivation by the, 155. 
 
 Potash, absorbed from solution by soils, 60 , is a terrestrial food of 
 plants, 164. 
 
 Produce (acreahle; of Tullian culture. 152-154; instances given, ib. 
 
 Profit of Tullian Husbandry, 156 ; of alternate husbandry, 157. 
 
 Prosperous, the name of Tull’s farm, see Farm. 
 
 Pulverization, Tull’s meaning of the term, 79. 
 
 R 
 
Vi 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 R. 
 
 Radiation of Roots, 86. 
 
 Rain absorbs atmospheric Oxygen, Carbonic Acid and Ammonia, 56 ; 
 thereby incorporates these gaseous substances with the soil, 
 ib. 
 
 Ramification of Roots, 62, 87 ; promoted by severance, 87. 
 
 Rape-cake, experiment with at Holkham, as a Manure, 179. 
 
 Reaping (Tullian) 103 ; how performed, 121 ; economy of Tull's 
 method, ib . 
 
 Remunerative success of Tull’s farming examined, 129 ; Arthur 
 Young quoted on the subject, 132. 
 
 Rents, rise of in Tillage districts, 6 ; in grazing districts, ib. 
 
 Ridges ('Tullian) how formed, 103, 106. 
 
 Ridges (seed) see Seed-bed. 
 
 Robinson, Sir George, his Tullian experiment, 153, 155, 160. 
 
 Roots, (Turnips, &c.,) their economy in Corn farming questioned, 3 ; 
 culture of, 3, 7, 8 ; feeding cattle with, 5, 6. 
 
 Roots of Plants are incapable of absorbing food in solution, 61 ; they 
 absorb food by actual contact, ib ; and in proportion to their 
 surface, 62 ; Liebig cited, ib ; their multiplication promoted 
 by horse-hoeing, ib ; Tull’s observations on their functions, 
 63 ; of the roots of corn plants, 86 ; their power of radiation 
 through the soil, 86, 106 ; their power of ramification, 87 ; 
 and of multiplication when severed, ib ; benefits of their 
 multiplication, ib ; their functions increased by horse-hoe- 
 ing, 106. 
 
 Rothamsted principles of Manuring examined, 167, 197 ; experiments 
 tabulated, 175; the manured plots, 177; the unmanured 
 plots, 175 ; the number of years involved in the experi- 
 ments, 169 ; their general characteristics, ib ; Caird’s de- 
 scription of them, 170; Tull quoted, 172; bare-fallowed plot, 
 176 ; plot manured with cattle-court manure, 177 ; table of 
 experiments with nitrogenous manures, 203. 
 
 Rows (seed) practised by Tull, double, 107 : trible,ib ; quadruple, ib ; 
 
 width of partitions or fallow spaces between each set of rows, 
 105 ; width of intervals between the drills of eacli set of 
 rows, 108. 
 
 S. 
 
 Saltpetre, an atmospheric manure, 163 ; common, ib ; Chilian, ib. 
 
 Sap of Plants, its re-action with Oxygen, 80. 
 
 Scotland, Old Husbandry of, see Old Scottish Husbandry ; Modern 
 Husbandry of, 182 ; its success due to improved tillage, 183 ; 
 Mr. Wren Hoskyns on the, ib. 
 
 Seed, quantity of per acre sown by Tull, 90 ; his directions for sowing, 
 91, 93, 125 ; quantities used in the other Tullan instances, 
 160. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Vll 
 
 Seed-bed (Tullian) described, 100 ; how formed, 110, 112, 122, 123; 
 
 its depth and fineness important, 123 ; the feering of the, 
 124 ; the henting of the, ib ; levelling its top, ib ; its 
 excellence, 125 ; must be ploughed dry, ib. 
 
 Silica, a terrestrial manure, 164. 
 
 Smith, tue Rev. S., his Tullian experiments, see Lois Weedon. 
 
 Snow absorbs atmospheric oxygen, carbonic acid, and ammonia, 56 ; 
 these substances thereby incorporated with the soil, ib, 
 
 Soil the, its minute division necessary to fertility, 73 ; methods of 
 pulverizing it, 74 ; by dung, ib ; by tillage, ib ; by both, ib ; 
 Tull’s method of testing its fertility, 106 ; of its vegetative 
 nutriments, 164, 165, 166, 194, 197 ; Zero fertility of soils, 
 174. 
 
 Sowing, Tull’s method of, 103, 105. 
 
 Spade, Tullan corn culture by the, 140, 153 ; expenses of, 159 ; 
 profits of, ib ; table of operative details, 160. 
 
 Stalks ('corn) augmented in number by horse-hoeing, 95. 
 
 Stall feeding, it economy questioned, 5. 
 
 Stercoraceous manures, 43. 
 
 Straw preponderates in sowed corn, 100 ; the proportion of, less, and 
 of corn more, in horse-hoed, ib. 
 
 Stubbles, the breaking up of, for the next crop described, 103, 121. 
 
 Sulphate of Ammonia, an atmospheric manure, 163. 
 
 Sulphuric acid, a terrestrial constituent of plant food, 164. 
 
 Summary of the work. 206. 
 
 Summer working of the fallow spaces described, 114. 
 
 T. 
 
 Table, shewing the acreable corn produce of England at various 
 periods, 30 ; containing instances of Tullan corn culture, 
 152, 153 ; shewing the acreable produce in each successive 
 year, 154 ; shewing the expense of Tullian plough cultivation, 
 155 ; shewing the profits of 'Tullian plough-husbandry, 156 ; 
 shewing those of common husbandry, 157 ; illustrative of 
 manured Tullian farming, 158 ; shewing the profits of Tul- 
 lian spade husbandry, 159 ; of certain operative details in 
 Tullian husbandry, 160. 
 
 Terrestrial agents in Vegetation, 75 ; manures, 164. 
 
 Thin Sowing, 'full the author of, 33 ; promotes tillering, 90. 
 
 Thompson, J. S., Esq., his discovery of the chemico-absorptive pro- 
 perty of soils, 57. 
 
 Tillage a substitute for Manure, 47 ; this not an absolute rule, 47, 
 65 ; tillage defined, 51 ; its effects on light land, ib : on 
 strong land, ib ; its effects in condensing dew, 53 ; instances 
 given, ib ; promotes the atmospheric fertilization of soils, 
 54 ; instances of this, ib ; imperfections of common, 67 ; 
 is a means of pulverizing the soil, 74 ; its effects on vegeta- 
 tion, 94 ; consolidates loose soils, 117 ; its primary import- 
 ance, 173; the zero of, 174. 
 
VJ11 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tillage Husbandry, Old English, 27, 46 ; Old Scottish, 179. 
 
 Tillering of Com Plants, 89, 93 ; thin sowing promotes it, 90. 
 
 Time, an industrial element in manuring, 199 ; Liebig quoted, ib ; Tull 
 quoted, ib. 
 
 Trench Ploughing, Tull’s method of, 126 ; its benefits, ib. 
 
 Tull, Jethro, his personal and agricultural biography, 18,23; parti- 
 culars of his system tabulated, 152-160. 
 
 Tullian Cultivation, Mr. Clarke's method, 209, Appendix No. I. 
 
 Turnips, the economy of growing them questioned, 4 ; their degener- 
 ation, 4, 138, Appendix No. II. 
 
 Turnip growing abandoned by Tull, 35. 
 
 V. 
 
 A T apour absorbs atmospheric oxygen, carbonic acid and ammonia, 56 ; 
 
 thereby incorporates these gaseous substances with the soil, 
 ib; is a constituent of this atmosphere, 163. 
 
 Vineyard Tillage described, 24 ; it suggested to Tull, his horse-hoe- 
 ing system, 32. — 
 
 W. 
 
 Water an agent in Vegetation, 74, 76. 
 
 Way, Professor, quoted 49, 50, 64, 66, 116. 
 
 Wheat, acreable increase of, in England, 7, 30 ; quantity exported in 
 the last century, 16. 
 
 Wool, former and present prices of, 8. 
 
 Working (summer) of the fallow spaces, 114. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Young, Arthur, his rules for proportioning farms, 8 : his account of 
 Tull’s success, 132 ; his opposition to Tull’s system, 134 ; 
 he lived to see Tull’s system of interculture generally 
 adopted in cattle crops, ib ; his eulogy on Tull, 210; when 
 born, and died, 210. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zero productive power of Tilled Soils, 174. 
 
EEEA T A . 
 
 I’age 88, line 15th ; for “ 17th century,” read 18th century. 
 
 ” ' ’ f or “ flattened ridge,” read narrowed ridgelet. 
 
 ” 1A8, „ 5th, foot note ; omit “ occasioned.” 
 
 ” h » 3rd, Appendix ; for “ Journal,” read Magazine. 
 
Date Due 
 
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