The same wide Interval, which is ho’d betwixt Ridges the First time, with Two Furrows, must have had Four Furrows, to hoe it on the Level; or else the Furrow, that is turn’d from the Row, would rise up, and a great Part of it fall over to the Left-hand, and bury the Row; but when turn’d from a Ridge, it will all fall down to the Right-hand.
You must not leave the Tops of the Ridges quite so narrow and sharp for Drilling of Wheat, as you may for drilling Turneps; Wheat being in treble Rows, but Turneps generally in single Rows[100]. This is our Method of making Ridges for the First Crop of drill’d Wheat.
[100]A single Row taking up less of the Breadth, may be afforded to have more of the Ridge’s Depth; because it leaves the Interval wider.
But the Method of making Ridges for a succeeding Crop, after the former is harvested, is best perform’d as follows: In making Ridges for Wheat after Wheat, you must raise them to their full Height, before you plow the old Partitions, with their Stubble, up to them; for if you go about to make the Ridges higher afterwards, the Stubble will so mix with the Mould of their Tops, that it may not only be an Hindrance to the Drill, but also to the First Hoeing; because if the Hoe-plough goes so near to the Rows as it ought, it would be apt to tear out the Wheat-plants along with the Stubble.
In Reaping, we cut as near as we can to the Ground[101]; which is easily done, because the Stalks stand all close together at Bottom, contrary to those of sown Wheat.
[101]When Wheat is reap’d very low, the Stubble is no great Impediment; and I do this when I am forc’d to inlarge the Breadth of my Ridges, or to change their Bearing, as I do when I find it convenient for them to point Cross-ways of the Field instead of Length ways; as if one End of it be wetter than the other: For ’tis inconvenient, that one End of a Ridge should be in the wet Part, and the other in the dry; because, in that Case, we cannot hoe the dry End without hoeing the wet at the same time; and whilst we attend for the wet Part to become dry, it may happen, that the Season for hoeing the whole (if the Quantity be great) may be lost.
I find this Stubble, when ’tis only mixt with the Intervals, very beneficial to the Hoeing of my Wheat; but I know not whether it may be so in rich miry Land.
As soon as conveniently you can, after the Crop of Wheat is carried off (if the Trench in the Middle of each wide Interval be left deep enough by the last Hoeing), go as near as you can to the Stubble with a common Plough, and turn Two large Furrows into the Middle of the Intervals, which will[102] make a Ridge over the Place where the Trench was: But if the Trench be not deep enough, go first in the Middle of it with one Furrow; which with Two more taken from the Ridges, will be three Furrows in each Interval; continue this Plowing as long as the dry Weather lasteth; and then finish, by turning the Partitions (whereon the last Wheat grew) up to the new Ridges, which is usually done at Two great Furrows. You may plow these last Furrows, which complete the Ridges, in wet Weather.
[102]’Tis the Depth and Fineness of this Ridge that the Success of our Crop depends on; the Plants having nothing else to maintain them during the First Six Months; and if, for want of Sustenance, they are weak in the Spring, ’twill be more difficult to make them recover their Strength afterwards so fully as to bring them to their due Perfection. But Ploughmen have found a Trick to disappoint us in this fundamental Part of our Husbandry, if they are not narrowly watched: They do it in the following Manner; viz. They contrive to leave the Trench very shallow; and then, in turning the Two First Furrows of the Ridge, they hold the Plough towards the Left, which raises up the Fin of the Share, and leaves so much of the Earth whereon the Rows are to stand whole and unplowed, that after once Harrowing there doth not remain above Two or Three Inches in Depth of fine Earth underneath the Rows when drilled, instead of Ten or Twelve Inches.
On a Time, when my Diseases permitted me to go into the Wheat-field, where my Ploughs were at Work, I discovered this Trick, and ventured to ask my chief Ploughman his Reason for doing this in my Absence, contrary to my Direction. He magisterially answer’d, according to his own Theory, which Servants judge ought to be follow’d before that of him they call Master, saying, That as the Roots of Wheat never reached more than Two or Three Inches deep, there was no need that the fine Mould should be any deeper. But those shallow Ridges, which were indeed too many, producing a Crop very much inferior to the contiguous deep Ridges, shewed, at my Cost, the Mistake of my cunning Ploughman.