The plowing one Furrow in sandy or mellow Ground makes a Pulveration, which is enjoy’d first by these Plants that are the nearest to it; and also delivers them from the Weeds, which, though there may be very few, yet there is a vast difference between their robbing the Wheat of its Pasture in the Row, and the Wheat’s enjoying both that and the whole Pasture of the Furrow also.
I never remember to have seen a Plant poor, that was contiguous to a well-hoed Interval, unless overpower’d by a too great Multitude of other Plants; and the same Exception must be made, if it were a Plant that required more or less Heat or Moisture, than the Soil or Climate afforded.
And I have been informed by some Persons, that they have often made the like Observations; that, in the driest of Weather, good Hoeing[42] procures Moisture to Roots; tho’ the Ignorant and Incurious fansy, it lets in the Drought; and therefore are afraid to hoe their Plants at such Times, when, unless they water them, they are spoil’d for Want of it.
[42]When Land is become hard by lying too long unho’d, the Plough in turning a deep Furrow from each Side of a single Row of young Plants (suppose of Turneps) may crack the Earth quite through the Row, and expose the Roots to the open Air and Sun in very dry Weather; but if the Earth wherein the Plants stand be fine, there will be no Cracks in it: ’Tis therefore the delaying the Hoeing too long that occasions the Injury. 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 exhal’d back in the Heat of the Day.
There is yet one more Benefit Hoeing gives to Plants, which by no Art can possibly be given to Animals: For all that can be done in feeding an Animal is, what has been here already said of Hoeing; that is, to give it sufficient Food, Meat and Drink, at the times it has occasion for them; if you give an Animal any more, ’tis to no manner of Purpose, unless you could give it more Mouths, which is impossible; but in hoeing a Plant the additional Nourishment thereby given, enables it to send out innumerable additional Fibres and Roots, as in one of the Glasses with a Mint in it, is seen; 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 ’tis for Want of Hoeing, that so few are brought to their Growth and Perfection[43].
[43]A Ground was drill’d with Ray-grass and Barley, in Rows at Five Inches Distance from each other; it produced a pretty good Crop of Ray-grass the second Year as is usual; there was adjoining to it a Ground of Turneps, that were in Rows, with wide Intervals Horse-ho’d; they stood for Seed; and amongst them there was, in Room of a Turnep, a single Plant of Ray-grass, which, being hoed as the Turneps were, had (in every one’s Opinion that saw it) acquired a Bulk at least equal to a Thousand Plants of the same Species in the other Ground; tho’ that vast Plant had no other Advantage above the other, except its Singleness, and the deep Hoeing.
I have seen a Chickweed, by the same means, as much increas’d beyond its common Size; and a Plant of Mustard-seed, whose collateral Branches were much bigger than ever I saw a whole Plant of that Sort; it was higher than I could reach its Top, and indeed more like a Tree than an Herb; many other sorts of Plants have I seen thus increased beyond what I had ever observ’d before, but none so much as those.
In what Manner the Sarrition of the Antients was performed in their Corn, is not very clear: This seems to have been their Method; viz. When the Plants were some time come up, they harrowed the Ground, and pull’d out the Weeds by Hand. The Process of this appears in Columella, where he directs the Planting of Medica to be but a Sort of Harrowing or Raking amongst the young Plants, that the Weeds might come out the more easily: Ligneis Rastris statim jacta Semina obruantur. Post Sationem Ligneis Rastris Jarriendus, & identidem runcandus est Ager, ne alterius generis Herba invalidam Medicam perimat.
They harrowed and hoed Rastris; so that their Occatio and Sarritio were performed with much the same Sort of Instrument, and differed chiefly in the Time: The first was at Seed-time, to cover the Seed, or level the Ground; the other was to move the Ground after the Plants were up.
One Sort of their Sarrition was, Segetes permota Terra debere adobrui, ut fruticare possint. Another Sort was thus: In Locis autem frigidis sarriri nec adobrui, sed Plana Sarritione Terram permoveri.