Part 54

Another way to conquer a strong Turf is, to plow it first with a Breast-plough, very thin; and, when the Swerd is rotten, then plow it at the proper Depth: But this Method is (besides the extraordinary Charge of it) liable to other great Misfortunes. If the Turf be pared up in Winter, or early in the Spring, it is a Chance but the Rains cause it to grow stronger than before, instead of its Rotting.

And if it be pared later, tho’ dry Weather do follow, and continue long enough to kill the Turf, yet this loses time; the Season of plowing is retarded; for all the Staple still remains untilled; and, before that can be well done, the Year is too far spent for sowing it with Wheat, which is the most proper Grain for such strong Land; and few will have Patience to wait, and plow on till another Wheat-seed time. The dry Weather also, which in Summer kills the Swerd, renders the Plowing obnoxious to most or all the Evils afore-mentioned.

Besides, most strong Land has Stones in it, which will not admit the Use of the Breast-plough.

* * * * *

A Farmer inquires concerning the Four-coulter Plough, as in the following DIALOGUE.

Farm. What must we do then? Must we have recourse to the Spade for breaking up our rich, strong, swerdy Land?

Resp. If you can procure Men to dig it faithfully in Pieces, not above Two Inches and an half thick, at the Price of about Eight Shillings per Acre, it would do very well, and answer all the Ends of Tillage; but, tho’ you bargain with them to dig it at that Size for Three Pounds per Acre, you will find, upon Examination, most of the Pieces or Spits, which are dug out of your Sight, to be of twice that Thickness. And no great Quantities can be this way managed, altho’ the Price of Corn should answer such an extravagant Expence.

Farm. Since it is so difficult to bring our strong Land into Tilth, after it has rested, that it cannot be speedily done by a Plough without a Coulter, or by one with a Coulter, in wet Weather or dry, nor with a Breast-plough, without a certain Expence, and an uncertain Success, the Spade is too chargeable a Tillage for the Field: It seems to me, upon the Whole, that we are Losers by this inaratæ gratia terræ, unless we could contrive some other Method of reducing it sooner, and with less Charge, into Tilth; for I observe, that, when we sow it upon the Back, the Corn and Grass (or Couch), coming both together, exhaust the Ground so much, that by that time we can (which is about Three Years) reduce the great Lumps to a tolerable Fineness, it grows full of Grass and Weeds (which we call Foul), and loses that Fertility we expected it should acquire by Rest, becoming, in our Terms, both out of Tilth, and out of Heart.

Resp. If you know all this to be true, and that without a Coulter you cannot break it up at all; and that with one Coulter you cannot any way cut the Furrow small enough, or less than Ten Inches broad; why do not you cut it with Four Coulters, which will reduce the same Furrow into Four equal Parts, of Two Inches and an half each in Breadth, and of the Depth of the Staple, tho’ that should be Two Spit, or Sixteen Inches deep?

Farm. How can that be done?

Resp. Every jot as easily as with one Coulter: For, before the Furrow is raised by the Share, it lies fast, and makes a sufficient Resistance equally against the Edges of all the Coulters; tho’, after it be raised and loose, it yields and recedes every way, except downwards; so that it cannot be cut by any Edge, but such as attacks it perpendicularly from above, as that of the Spade does.

Farm. This seems to me reasonable; and, having very lately heard talk of this Plough, I would gladly know more of it.

Resp. The Furrow, being cut into Four Parts, has not only Four times the Superficies on the Eight Sides which it would have had on Two Sides; but it is also more divided cross-ways; viz. The Ground-wrest presses and breaks the lower (or Right-hand) Quarter; the other Three Quarters, in rising and coming over the Earth-board, must make a crooked Line about a Fourth longer than the strait one they made before moved; therefore their Thinness not being able to hold them together, they are broken into many more Pieces, for want of Tenacity to extend to a longer Line, contrary to a whole Furrow, whose great Breadth enables it to stretch and extend from a shorter to a longer Line, without breaking; and, as it is turned off, the Parts are drawn together again by the Spring of the Turf or Swerd, and so remain whole after Plowing. Thus the Four-coultered Plow can divide the Soil into above Twenty times more Parts than the common Plough; and sometimes, when the Earth is of a right Temper betwixt wet and dry, the Earth-board, in turning the Furrows off, will break them into Dust, having more Superficies than is made by Four common Plowings; and it is impossible there should be any large Pieces amongst it.

A swerdy Furrow cut off by only one Coulter, being whole, is apt to stand up on its Edge, or lie hollow; and then, being open to the Air, it does not rot; but when it is cut by several Coulters, it has not Strength to support itself, it falls down, lies close to the Earth under it, and, excluding the free Air from the Turf, it soon becomes rotten. And for killing the Turf of swerdy Land is the chief Use of the Four-coultered Plough: For doing of which there is this Advantage, that as in a whole Furrow there are often Strings of Couch-grass, Three or Four Feet long; but, when cut by this Plough, there is scarce a String left of one Foot long: And these Strings being apt to send out Roots from every Knot or Joint, the shorter they are cut, the more they will be exposed to the Air and Sun, which will kill them the sooner.

Now, what a prodigious Advantage must the Influences of the Atmosphere have upon these small Parts, for making a further Division of them! Frost, Water, Drought, and nitrous Air, easily penetrate to their very Centers, which cannot in the largest of them be more than one Inch and a Quarter distant from their Superficies. This Advantage, with a few subsequent common Plowings, performed in proper Seasons, resolves the Earth almost all to a Powder. The Swerd, some being immersed or buried and mixed among so great a Proportion of Mould, is soon rotten and lost; some of the Swerd lying loose a-top, the Earth presently drops out of it; and then the Roots are dried up, and die. Thus is the whole Staple of the Ground brought into perfect Tilth in a very short time beyond what the Spade ever does in such swerdy Land.

Farm. What sort of Weather is best for using this Plough?

Resp. Any Weather, except the Ground be so dry and hard that the Plough cannot enter it; but it is very proper to be done, when the Earth is so wet, that by no means it ought to be plowed with any other Plough; for it never can be too moist for this, unless the Cattle which draw it be mired; because, tho’ all the Cattle should not go in the Furrow, yet their Treadings are cut so small by the Coulters, that the Earth is not kept from dissolving, as when turned off whole in common Tillage. ’Tis observed, that the Incisions made by the Coulters on swerdy Land, will not heal, or so close up, but that they will open again by the next Plowing, though it be a great while after. A Farmer who uses this Plough, may till in all Weathers and all Seasons of the Year, either in fallowing with this, which is best in wet, or in stirring with the common ones, which must be done in dry Weather; and when the Ground is broken up with this, it may be stirred in the driest Weather that can be, without the Danger of tearing (or spaulting) up of the under Stratum along with the Staple, because this is all broken before, and then no more can rise with it; as it does to the Ruin of the Soil, when in common Tillage they go deeper the Second time than the First: Also, if there be a Necessity of stirring some sort of Land when it is wet, it ought either to be done with this Plough, or else with a common one drawn by a single Row of Cattle treading all in the Furrow; for tho’ some Land be very fine, yet, when plowed by a double Row of Cattle in wet Weather, it will be made into large Pieces by the Treading, and perhaps not dissolve again in a long time: Therefore it is better to be prevented.

Farm. I perceive this Plough lays the Foundation for all good Husbandry; and there can be no other way to bring Land into perfect Tilth in so short a Time, or with so little Expence. And I am convinc’d, that no Farmer ought to be without it, who desires to be free from the Danger of his Land being ever out of Tilth: But I have heard it objected, that it is harder to draw than the common Ploughs; and that its Beam being longer, upon account of the Four Coulters, it lies farther behind, and comes harder after the Horses.

Resp. I must confess, there is something in that Objection; for this Plough, being something longer, may be a little the harder Draught; and also its Weight and Strength must bear a Proportion to the Length of it. But this small Increase of the Draught would have been a much stronger (if not a fatal) Objection, had that Custom been general, of Horses drawing by their Tails, as ’tis said to have been formerly in some Places; for then, perhaps, a sufficient Strength of Horses could not be applied to the Plough. But in Countries where Traces are in Use, every Horse of the Team may draw the Plough equally, and then there will be no other Inconvenience, besides the adding one Horse, or keeping a stronger Team: And he cannot be wise, who would lose the Profit of his Land, for the Odds of sometimes adding a Horse to his Plough. And I am very certain, that this Plough requires a much less Strength of Cattle to draw it in moist Weather, which is the most proper to use it in, than to draw a common Plough in the same Ground, and at the same Depth, in dry Weather; and can seldom be used safely in any other. And the Vulgar, who have always a wrong Cause ready at hand to apply to every thing, impute that Draught to the Fashion of the Plough, which ought to be imputed to its going deeper; and this great Depth at which ’tis capable of plowing, viz. Two Spit deep, is one extraordinary Benefit of it, tho’ it may, on Occasion, go as shallow as any.

The Draught is not so much increased by adding Three Coulters, as may be imagined; for when the Ground is moist, the Incisions are easily made by the Edges; and when they are cut small, the Furrows rise much more easily upon the Share and Earth-Board, than if whole.

Farm. If this Plough be so beneficial, having so many Advantages, and only the Two Inconveniencies, one of requiring a little more Strength to draw it, and the other its being unfit for dry hard Ground, I wonder why it is not become more common?

Resp. It has been used with very great Success for these several Years last past, but never like to be common, unless it be described in a more geometrical Manner, than any Plough has hitherto been; for the Plough-wrights find it difficult enough to make a common Plough with one Coulter to perform as it ought, for want of the necessary Rules of their Art. It is upon this Account that the Two-coulter’d Ploughs are used in few Places, though they have been found of excellent Use, and have been formerly common: But, alas! when the Makers, who by their diligent Study and much Practice had attained the Perfection of their Art, died for want of learning to write their Rules mathematically, and shew how the mechanical Powers were applicable to them, the Art was in a Manner lost, at the Death of those Artists; and then the unskilful Plough-wrights, destitute of the true Rules, were not able to make a Two-coulter’d Plough to perform well, and then it was left off. Very lately ’tis revived, since the Three and Four-coulter’d ones have been used; from whence some have made a Shift to take the Rules of placing Two Coulters into a Plough, and they begin to be common again; and, no doubt, will cease again as soon as the Rules are forgot.

Plate. I.

B.Cole. Delin. et Sculp.]

’Tis strange that no Author should have written fully of the Fabric of Ploughs! Men of the greatest Learning have spent their Time in contriving Instruments to measure the immense Distance of the Stars, and in finding out the Dimensions, and even Weight, of the Planets: They think it more eligible to study the Art of plowing the Sea with Ships, than of tilling the Land with Ploughs; they bestow the utmost of their Skill, learnedly, to pervert the natural Use of all the Elements for Destruction of their own Species, by the bloody Art of War. Some waste their whole Lives in studying how to arm Death with new Engines of Horror, and inventing an infinite Variety of Slaughter; but think it beneath Men of Learning (who only are capable of doing it) to employ their learned Labours in the Invention of new (or even improving the old) Instruments for increasing of Bread.

The easiest Method of perpetuating the Use of the many coulter’d Ploughs, and other newly-invented Instruments of Husbandry, is by Models, i. e. the Things themselves in little; and these may be all portable even in a Man’s Pocket: Every Part must be fully described, with the true Dimensions, and the mathematical Reasons, on which their Contrivance is founded. Directions also for using them must be given at the same time that their Manner of making is described. In some, the very Horses which draw must be represented, to shew the manner of fixing the Horses, and the Traces: Cautions against all the Errors that may happen by the want of Experience in the Makers or Users, must be given.

When this is done, and the Rules put into a Method, the new Hoeing-Husbandry, in all its Branches, will be much more easy and certain than the old; because there are no mathematical Rules extant in any Method; and a Man may practise the old random Husbandry all his Life, without attaining so much Certainty in Agriculture as may be learned in a few Hours from such a Treatise.

The Rules, indeed, require much Labour, Study, and Experience, to compose them; but when finish’d, will be most easy to practise: Like the Rules for measuring Timber; their Use is, at first Sight, easy to every Carpenter, and to most Artificers who work in Wood; but no illiterate Person is able to compose those Rules, or to measure Timber without them.