Part 27

If the Intervals are narrower in deep Land, tho’ there might be Mould enough in them, yet there would not be Room to pulverize it.

If narrower in shallow Land, tho’ there were Room, yet there would not be Mould enough in them to be pulverized.

The Horse-hoe, well applied, doth supply the Use of Dung and Fallow; but it cannot supply the Use of Earth, tho’ it can infinitely increase the vegetable Pasture of it, by pulverizing it, where it is in a reasonable Quantity: Yet if the Intervals be so narrow, that near all the Earth of them goes to make the Partitions raised at the Top of the Ridges, there will be so little to be pulverized, that you must return to Fallowing, and to the Dung-cart, and to all the old exorbitant Charges.

The Objections against these wide Intervals are only for saving a Penyworth or Two of Earth in each Row, or a few Groats-worth of it in an Acre; by saving of which Earth they may lose, in the present and succeeding Crops, more Pounds.

Eight Acres, Part of a Ground of Twenty Acres, drilled with Intervals of Three Feet and an half, brought a good Crop; but the Second Year, not being hoed, the Crop was poor; and the Third Crop made that Land so foul and turfy, that ’twas forced to lie for a Fallow, there being no way to bring it into Tilth without a Summer-plowing, when the rest of the same Piece, in wider Intervals, being constantly hoed, continued in good Tilth, and never failed to yield a good Crop, without missing one Year.

This Narrowness of the Intervals, if the Damage of it be rightly computed, would amount to half the Inheritance of the Land; and was occasioned by the Wilfulness of my Bailiff, who, drilling it upon the Level, ordered the Horse to be guided half a Yard within the Mark, because he fansied the Intervals would be too wide, if he followed my Directions.

In another Field, there is now a Sixth Crop of Wheat, in wide Intervals, very promising, tho’ this Ground has had no sort of Dung to any of these Crops, or in several Years before them: The last Year’s Crop was the Fifth, and was the best of the Five, tho’ a Yard of the Row yielded but Eighteen Ounces and Three Quarters; and the Third Crop yielded Twenty Ounces Weight of clean Wheat in the same Spot; but ’twas because the Spot where the Twenty grew, was then a little higher than the rest, which in Two Years became more equal; and the thin Land was more deficient in that Third Crop, than the thick Land exceeded the thin in the Fifth Crop.

Wheat, before Harvest, standing in Rows with wide Intervals betwixt them, may not seem, to the Eye, to equal a Crop of half the Bigness dispersed all over the Land, when sown in the common Manner; and yet there is more Deceit in the Appearance of those different Crops, whilst they are young, and in Grass: We should therefore not judge of them then by our Imagination, but as we do of the Sun and Moon nigh the Horizon, viz. by our Reason.

Imagination often deceives us by Arguments false or precarious; but Reason leads us to Demonstration, by Weights and Measures: Yet this Prejudice will vanish at Harvest before weighing; for then all those wide Intervals that were bare, will be covered with large Ears interfering to hide them quite, and make a finer Appearance than a sown Crop. But ’tis observed, that the Cone-wheat makes the finest Shew, when you look on it length ways of the Rows, both at Harvest, and a considerable time before Harvest.

In the thick the Hoe-plough went deeper, and consequently raised more Pasture there; but then it went the shallower in the thin; and when the Land became of a more equal Depth the Fifth Year, the Plough and the Hoe-plough went deeper, all the Piece being taken together; for the Crop could be but in proportion to the different Pasture, allowing somewhat for the more or less Seasonableness of the Year.

The Soil, in this our Case, cannot be supplied in Substance, but from the Atmosphere. The Earth which the Rain brings can do it alone, if it fall in great Quantity; for by Water, ’tis plain, the Earth which nourished Helmont’s Tree was supplied; for the Tin-cover of the Box wherein it stood, prevented the Dews from entering.

Dews must add very much to the Land, thus continually tilled and hoed; for they are more heavily charged with terrestrial Matter than Rain is, which appears from their forcing a Descent through the Air, when ’tis strong enough to buoy up the Clouds from falling into Rain: And Dew, when kept in a Vessel long enough to putrefy, leaves a greater Quantity of black Matter at the Bottom of the Vessel, than Rain-water does in a Vessel of the same Bigness, filled with it till putrefied.

Dews at Land, I suppose, are first exhaled from Rivers, and moist Lands, and from the Expirations of Vegetables; most of the Dew which falls on it is exhaled from untilled Land; but most of that which falls on well tilled or well hoed Land, remains therein unexhaled; so that the untilled Ground helps, by that means, to enrich and augment the tilled: For if an Acre be tilled for Two Years together without sowing, it will become richer by that Tillage, than by lying unplowed Four Years, which may be easily proved by Experience.

Non igitur Fatigatione, quemadmodum plurimi crediderunt, nec Senio, sed nostra scilicet Inertia, minus benigne nobis Arva respondent. Colum. lib. xi. cap. 1.

But then, as to Rain, the Sea being larger than all the Land (and its Waters, by their Motion, becoming replete with terrestrial Matter), ’tis not unlikely, that more Vapour is raised from One Acre of Sea, than from One hundred Acres of Land.

Some have been so curious as to compute the Quantity of Rain, that falls yearly in some Places in England, by a Contrivance of a Vessel to receive it; and ’tis found, in one of the driest Places, far from the Sea, to be Fourteen Inches deep, in the Compass of a Year; in some Places much more; viz. at Paris, Nineteen Inches; in Lancashire, Mr. Townley found, by a long-continued Series of Observations, that there falls above Forty Inches of Water in a Year’s time.

Could we as easily compute the true Quantity of Earth in Rain-water, as the Quantity of Water is computed, we might perhaps find it to answer the Quantity of Earth taken off from our hoed Soil annually by the Wheat.

But if Land sown with Wheat be not hoed, its Surface is soon incrustate; and then much of this Water, with its Contents, runs off, and returns to the Sea, without entering the Ground; and in Summer a great deal of what remains is exhaled by the Sun, and raised by the Wind, both in Summer and Winter.

Some there are who think it a fatal Objection, that the more an Interval is hoed, the more Weeds will grow in it; and that the Hoe can produce, or (as they say) breed in it as many Weeds in one Summer, as would have come thereon in Ten Years by the old Husbandry. But by this Objection they only maintain, that the Hoe can destroy as many Weeds in One Summer, as the old Husbandry can in Ten Years.

And they might add, that since all Weeds that grow where the Hoe comes, are killed before they seed, and that few of those Which grow in the old Husbandry, are killed before their Seed be ripe and shed; these Objectors will be forced to allow, that our Husbandry will lessen a Stock of Weeds more in one Summer, than theirs can do to the World’s End; unless they believe the equivocal Generation of Weeds, than which Opinion nothing can be more absurd.

Weeds cannot be killed before they grow, but will lie dormant, as they do in our Partitions, and in their sown Land; and while Seeds are in the Ground, they are always ready to grow at the first Opportunity, and will certainly break out at one time or other; so that preventing their coming, is only like healing up a Wound before it be cured.

Some object against my Method of weighing a Yard, or a Perch in Length of a Row, saying, this does not determine the Produce of a whole Field.

I did not weigh this Yard, as different from the other Yards round about it, for I had much Difficulty to determine which Row I should chuse it in; when I was going to cut in one Row, it still seemed that another was better, and I question whether I did chuse the best at last.

Note, Whereas I often mention the Wheat of this Field to be without Dung or Fallow, it must be understood of that Part of the Field wherein my Weighings and other Trials were made: because there was a small Part once fallowed Eight or Nine Years ago, and a little Dung laid on another Part about the last Michaelmas, after the Crop of Oats was taken off. But this being a Year in which Dung is observed to have little or no Effect on sown Wheat (my Dung being weak and laid thin), ’tis the same here; for those Rows which are in the dunged Part, can hardly be distinguished from the rest of the Rows which had not been dunged: And yet the Ends of the Rows which were cleansed of Weeds, are very distinguishable by the Colour of the Wheat, though some are the Third, and some the Fourth Crop since the Difference was made; and the whole Rows managed alike every Year, from that time to this; so that here Un-exhaustion is more effectual than Dung. This is certain, that neither Dung nor Fallow hath been near the Part wherein my Experiments were made.

I answer, that they judge right, if the Produce of the whole Field be not of equal Goodness; but if it be not, it must be because one Part of the Field is richer, or differently managed from the other Part: For the same Causes that produce Twenty Ounces of clean Wheat upon one Yard, must produce the same Quantity upon every Yard, of a Million of Acres.

When the Crop of half a Field is spoiled by Sheep, not hoed at all, or improperly, it would be ridiculous to compute the whole Field together for an Experiment: We might indeed weigh the poorest, to prove the Difference of the one from the other, to try (as they sometimes seem to do) how poor a Crop we can raise; but my Design was, to try how good a Crop I could raise with a Tenth Part of the common Expence.

And I have often weighed the Produce of the same Quantity of Ground, of all Sorts of sown Wheat, both the best and the worst; but never have found any of the sown equal to the best of my drilled. Indeed we have none of the richest Land in our Country within my Reach, that being not above One Mile.

I allow Two square Yards of their Crops to One Yard in Length of my Treble Row.