Part 52

I could give many more Instances of the same Kind, where hoed Crops and sown Crops have succeeded better after hoed Crops than after sown Crops, and never yet have seen the contrary; and therefore am convinced, that the Hoeing (if it be duly performed) enriches the Soil more than Dung and Fallows, and leaves the Land in a much better Condition for a succeeding Crop. The Reason I take to be very obvious: The artificial Pasture of Plants is made and increased by Pulveration only; and nothing else there is in our Power to enrich our Ground, but to pulverize it, and keep it from being exhausted by Vegetables. Superinductions of Earth are an Addition of more Ground, or changing it, and are more properly purchasing than cultivating.

This is more especially meant of Fallows in the common Husbandry, and a moderate Quantity of common Dung, or the Fold: And there may be such a poor Sand, or other barrenish Soil, so subject to Constipation in the Winter, as to require Dung when planted with Wheat, there being no general Rule without Exceptions; and ’tis impossible for me to know the Number of these Exceptions. Well it is for the Hoer, whose Land is of such a kind, that he can keep it in Heart without Dung by Hoeing; for when he has no Fold, he plows his Ground with Oxen, and plants it mostly with Wheat, the Straw whereof being for other Uses, he can make but very little Dung.

These Two are all we have in our Power; for pulverizing includes an Exposure to the Atmosphere; without which, I think, it cannot be reduced to Particles minute enough, or have their Superficies so impregnated as to become a fertile Pasture for Plants. The Experiment related by Mr. Evelyn of artificial Pulveration, seems to prove such an Exposure necessary; as also the frequent turning (or incessantly agitating) that fine Dust for a Year, before the barren exhausted Earth was made rich and prolific; For, besides the Benefit of Pulveration and Impregnation, Land is more enriched in proportion to the Time of Exposure, during which it is free from Exhaustion, and continually receiving from the Atmosphere: Therefore frequent Turning and Exposure are both contained in the Words pulverize, and not exhaust; and to comply with the latter, we should endeavour, that our Land may be never exhausted by any other Plants than by those we would propagate, and by no more of them neither, than what are necessary for producing a reasonable Crop; which, upon full Trial, will be found a very small Number in companion to those that are commonly sown; and then, if the Supply from the Atmosphere by Help of the Pulveration exceeds the Exhaustion, the Land will become richer, tho’ constant Crops are produced of the same Species; as in the Vineyards; and the Soil of these is so much improved by a bare competent Exhaustion, and the usual Pulveration, that after producing good annual Crops without Dung, until Age has killed the Vines, they leave the Soil better than they found it; and better than contiguous Land of the same Sort kept in arable Field-culture.

By Pulveration are meant all the Benefits of it that accrue to the Pasture of Plants; and by Exhaustion, all the Injuries that can be done to that Pasture, except Burning. And as the Benefits of Pulveration visibly continue for several Years, so do the Injuries of Exhaustion; which appear by the Ends of some of my Rows that have been cleansed of Weeds in their Partitions by the Hand-hoe, and the other Ends of the same Rows not cleansed; the Difference is visible in the Colour of the Wheat in the Third and Fourth following Crops, equally managed; and this is no more to be wondered at, than that Two unequal Sums, being equally increased or diminished, should remain unequal, until an Addition to the lesser, or a Subtraction from the greater, be made; which, in case of the Soil, must be either by a greater Pulveration, or a lesser Exhaustion. ’Tis by this that both Ends of these Rows in time become equal: For tho’ Ten Plants that produce an Ounce of Wheat, insume more Pabulum than one Plant that produces the same Quantity (the Reason for which is given in the Note on p. 121.); yet a Plant that produces Six or Seven Drams, insumes less than one that produces an Ounce; for a Plant which produces Six Drams of Wheat cannot be a poor one, and therefore insumes no more Pabulum than in proportion to its Augment and Product. Thus the Soil of those Ends, which, by being doubly exhausted by Weeds and Wheat plants, was made poorer, gradually recovers an Equality with the other Ends, by being for several Years less exhausted than the other Ends are by larger Plants, whilst the Number of Plants, and the Pulveration of each, are equal.

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.

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.

It may be asked, How ’tis possible that Eight Hoeings, which are but equal, in Labour, to Two plain Plowings, should so much exceed Three plain Plowings, as to procure as good or a better Crop without Manure, than the common Three Plowings can do with Manure, and enrich the Land also.

The Answer is, That each Hoeing of the Five or Six being done to the Wheat-plants, though it does not clean plow the whole Interval underneath, yet it changeth the whole external Superficies (or Surface) thereof, whereby it becomes impregnate by the nitrous Air, as much as if it were all clean plowed at the time of every Hoeing, and the Weeds are as much stifled, or suffocated.

Their One Year’s Tillage, which is but Two Plowings before Seed-time, commonly makes but little Dust; and that which it does make, has but a short time to lie exposed for Impregnation; and after the Wheat is sown, the Land lies unmoved for near Twelve Months, all the while gradually losing its Pasture, by subsiding, and by being continually exhausted in feeding a treble Stock of Wheat-plants, and a Stock of Weeds, which are sometimes a greater Stock. This puts the Advocates for the old Method upon a Necessity of using of Dung, which is, at best, but a Succedaneum of the Hoe; for it depends chiefly on the Weather, and other Accidents, whether it may prove sufficient by Fermentation to pulverize in the Spring, or no: And it is a Question whether it will equal Two additional Hoeings, or but one; tho’, as I have computed it, one Dunging costs the Price of One hundred Hoeings.

Additional, because there must first be several Hoeings to make our treble Row equal to an undunged Six-feet Ridge of sown Wheat.

When they have done all they can, the Pasture they raise is generally too little for the Stock that is to be maintained upon it, and much the greatest Part of the Wheat-plants are starved; for from Twenty Gallons of Seed they sow on an Acre, they receive commonly no more than Twenty Bushels of Wheat in their Crop, which is but an Increase of Eight Grains for one: Now, considering how many Grains there are in one good Ear, and how many Ears on one Plant, we find, that there is not One Plant in Ten that lives till Harvest, even when there has not been Frost in the Winter sufficient to kill any of them; or if we count the Number of Plants that come up on a certain Measure of Ground, and count them again in the Spring, and likewise at Harvest, we shall be satisfied, that most or all of the Plants that are missing, could die by no other Accident than want of Nourishment.

And they have oftener less than Sixteen Bushels; and in the Harvest 1735, a substantial experienced Farmer had no more than Four Bushels of Wheat to an Acre throughout a Field of Forty Acres, being robbed by Poppies; and I have known a Crop that has amounted to do more than Two Bushels to an Acre, and some Crops less, tho’ dunged and fallowed; so that, taking the common sown Crops of Wheat one with another, they are thought not to amount to Sixteen Bushels to an Acre, communibus annis.

They are obliged to sow this great Quantity of Seed, to the end that the Wheat, by the great Number of Plants, may be the better able to contend with the Weeds; and yet, too often, at Harvest, we see a great Crop of Weeds, and very little Wheat among them. Therefore this Pasture, being insufficient to maintain the present Crop, without starving the greatest Part of its Plants, is likely to be less able to maintain a subsequent Crop, than that Pasture which is not so much exhausted.

When their Crop of Wheat is much less than ours, their Vacancies, if computed all together, may be greater than those of our Partitions and Intervals; theirs, by being irregular, serve chiefly for the Protection of Weeds; for they cannot be plow’d out, without destroying the Corn, any more than Cannons firing at a Breach, whereon both Sides are contending, can kill Enemies, and not Friends.

Their Plants stand on the Ground in a confused manner, like a Rabble; ours like a disciplin’d Army: We make the most of our Ground; for we can, if we please, cleanse the Partitions with a Hand-hoe; and for the rest, if the Soil be deep enough to be drill’d on the Level, in treble Rows, the Partitions at Six Inches, the Intervals Five Feet; Five Parts in Six of the whole Field may be pulveriz’d every Year, and at proper times all round the Year.

Of all annual Weeds.

This is only put as a Supposition; for I have for these several Years left off drilling on the Level, and do advise against it; because altho’ Mould should not be wanting for the Partitions in deep rich Land, yet it is much more difficult to hoe on the Level than on Ridges.

But when it is drilled upon Ridges, the Proportion is less, by how much the Partitions, being thicker in Mould, contain more than a Sixth-part of the whole Six Feet of Earth, and the Proportion of unexhausted Earth will be alter’d likewise; and I only mention these Distances to avoid Fractions.

The Partitions being one Sixth-part for the Crop to stand on, and to be nourished in the Winter, one other Sixth-part being well pulveriz’d, may be sufficient to nourish it from thence till Harvest; the Remainder, being Two-thirds of the Whole, may be kept unexhausted, the One-third for one Year, and the other Third of it Two Years; all kept open for the Reception of the Benefits descending from above, during so long a time; whilst the sowed Land is shut against them every Summer, except the little time in which it is fallow’d, once in Three Years, and a little, perhaps, whilst they plow it for Barley in the Winter, which is a Season seldom proper for pulverizing the Ground.

This may be done, tho’ the Roots of a competent Number of Plants run through the Whole, in the manner herein before explained.

Their Land must have been exhausted as well by those supernumerary Plants of Wheat, while they lived, as by those that remain for the Crop, and by the Weeds. Our Land must be much less exhausted, when it has never above one Third-part of the Wheat-plants to nourish that they have, and generally no Weeds; so that our ho’d Land having much more vegetable Pasture made, and continually renewed, to so much a less Stock of Plants, must needs be left, by every Crop, in a much better Condition than theirs is left in by any one of their sown Crops, altho’ our Crops of Corn at Harvest be better than theirs.

Therefore, whenever a Soil receives more Supplies of fine Earth from the Atmosphere, than is exhausted by all the Plants that grow in the Soil, it becomes richer; but if the contrary, then it becomes poorer.

On an undung’d low Six feet Ridge, we have Three Rows, Eight Inches asunder, all which being equal, during the Winter, but each of the Two outside Rows at Harvest producing Ten times as much Wheat as the middle Row doth, all Three together produce a Quantity equal to One-and-twenty of this middle Row. Now, supposing the Roots of this Row not to reach through the outside Rows, so as to receive any Benefit from the ho’d Intervals, then this Row might only be equal to one of Nine Rows, which should have been drilled Eight Inches asunder on this Ridge, and then our Three would only be equal to Twenty-one of such Nine Rows. But since it can be demonstrated, that the Roots of our middle Row do pass through both the outside Rows far into the ho’d Intervals, we may well suppose it to be at least double to what it would have been, if it had no Benefit from the Hoeing, and then our Three will be equal to Forty-two of such Nine unho’d Rows. Thus our Crop is Thirty-three in Forty-two (or almost Four Parts in Five) increased by the Hoeing; for though many Fields of Wheat have been drilled all over in Rows Eight Inches asunder, it never has been judged, in Twenty Years Experience, that a Crop so planted, though not ho’d, was, by its Evenness and Regularity, less, cæteris paribus, than a Crop sown at random.

They object against us, saying, That sometimes the 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 apportion the Nourishment to the Number and Bulk of his Plants. However, by this Objection they allow, that the Hoe can give Nourishment enough, and therefore they cannot maintain, that there is a Necessity of Dung in the Hoeing-Husbandry; and that, if our Crops of Wheat should happen to suffer, by being too strong, our Loss will be less than theirs, when that is too strong, since it will cost them Nine times our Expence to make it so.

As for the Quantity of vegetable Matter of Dung, when reduced to Earth by Putrefaction, it is very inconsiderable, and, of many sorts of Manure, next to nothing.

The almost only Use of all Manure is the same as of Tillage; viz. the Pulveration it makes by Fermentation, as Tillage doth by Attrition or Contusion; and with these Differences, that Dung, which is the most common Manure, is apt to increase Weeds, a Tillage (of which Hoeing is chief) destroys them, and Manure is scanty in most Places, but Tillage may be had every-where. Another Difference is, the vast Disproportion of the Price of Manure and that of Tillage.

Note, As we have no way to enrich the Soil, but by Pulveration of Manure, or of Instruments, or of both; so Nature has ordain’d, that the Soil shall be exhausted by nothing, but by the Roots of Plants.