IV. The Condition in which the Land is left after a Crop.
The different Condition the Land is left in after a Crop[240], by the one and the other Husbandry, is not less considerable than the different Profit of the Crop.
[240]If indifferent Land be well pulverized by the Plough for one whole Year, it will produce a good Crop: But then, if, instead of being sown, it be kept pulverized on for another Year without being exhausted by any Vegetables, it will acquire from the Atmosphere an extraordinary great Degree of Fertility more than it had before such Second Year’s Pulveration and Unexhaustion. This being granted, which no Man of Experience can deny, what Reason can there be why such a Number of Plants, competent for a profitable Crop, may not be maintained on it the Second Year, that may keep the Degree of their Exhaustion in Æquilibrio with that Degree of Fertility, which the same Land had acquired at the End of the First Year of its Pulveration, the same Degree of Pulveration being continued to it by Hoeing in the Second Year? Or why may it not produce annual Crops always, if the same Equilibrium be continually kept? Two unanswerable Reasons may be given why this Equilibrium cannot be kept in the random Sowing, as it may in the Hoeing Method; viz. First, In the former, the Land is by the Number of sown Plants and Weeds much more (we may suppose at least Five times more) exhausted: And, Secondly, No Pulveration is continued to the Soil, whilst the Crop is on it; which is that Part of the Year wherein is the most proper (if not the only proper) Season for pulverizing. Therefore, allowing, that, in the random way, a Soil cannot, for want of Quantity of vegetable Food, continue to produce annual Crops without Manure, or perhaps with it; yet that is no Reason why it may not produce them in the Hoeing Culture duly performed.
A Piece of Eleven Acres of a poor, thin, chalky Hill was sown with Barley in the common Manner, after a hoed Crop of Wheat; and produced full Five Quarters and an half to each Acre (reckoning the Tythe); which was much more than any Land in all the Neighbourhood yielded the same Year; tho’ some of it be so rich, as that One Acre is worth Three Acres of this Land: And no Man living can remember, that ever this produced above half such a Crop before, even when the best of the common Management has been bestowed upon it.
A Field, that is a sort of an 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 Tythe. 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; ’twas still reckoned so poor, that nobody 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[241] had been taken from it, it was sown with Barley, and brought a very good Crop, much better than ever it was known to 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.
[241]These Three hoed Crops were of Turneps and Potatoes.
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 produce 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 Pulveration.
A Field was drilled with Barley after an hoed Crop; and another adjoining to it on the same Side of the same poor Hill, and exactly the same Sort of Land, was drilled with Barley also, Part of it after the sown Crop, the same Day with the other; there was only this Difference in the Soil, that the former of these had no manner of Compost on it for many Years before, and the latter was dunged the Year before: Yet its Crop was not near so good as that which followed the hoed Crop[242]; tho’ the latter had twice the Plowing that the former had before drilling, and the same Hoeings afterwards; viz. Each was hoed Three times.
[242]This was a Wheat Crop, and often well hoed.
A Field of about Seventeen Acres was Summer-fallowed, and drilled with Wheat; and with the Hoeing brought a very good Crop (except Part of it, which being eaten by trespassing Sheep in the Winter, was somewhat blighted); the Michaelmas after that was taken off, the same Field was drilled again with Wheat, upon the Stubble of the former, and hoed: This Second Crop was a good one, scarce any in the Neighbourhood better. A Piece of Wheat adjoining to it, on the very same Sort of Land (except that this latter was always reckoned better, being thicker in Mould above the Chalk), sown at the same time on dunged Fallows, and the Ground always dunged once in Three Years; yet this Crop failed so much, as to be judged, by some Farmers, not to exceed the Tythe of the other: That the hoed Field has received no Dung or Manure for many Years past, is because it lies out of the Reach for carrying of Cart-Dung, and no Fold being kept on my Farm: But I cannot say, I think there was quite so much Odds betwixt this Second undunged hoed Crop and the sown; yet this is certain, that the former is a good, and the latter a very bad Crop.