If the Intervals are narrower in deep Land, tho’ there might be Mould enough in them, yet there would not be Room to pulverize it.
If narrower in shallow Land, tho’ there were Room, yet there would not be Mould enough in them to be pulverized.
The Horse-hoe, well applied, doth supply the Use of Dung and Fallow; but it cannot supply the Use of Earth, tho’ it can infinitely increase the vegetable Pasture of it, by pulverizing it, where it is in a reasonable Quantity: Yet if the Intervals be so narrow, that near all the Earth of them goes to make the Partitions raised at the Top of the Ridges, there will be so little to be pulverized, that you must return to Fallowing, and to the Dung-cart, and to all the old exorbitant Charges[139].
[139]The Objections against these wide Intervals are only for saving a Penyworth or Two of Earth in each Row, or a few Groats-worth of it in an Acre; by saving of which Earth they may lose, in the present and succeeding Crops, more Pounds.
Eight Acres, Part of a Ground of Twenty Acres, drilled with Intervals of Three Feet and an half, brought a good Crop; but the Second Year, not being hoed, the Crop was poor; and the Third Crop made that Land so foul and turfy, that ’twas forced to lie for a Fallow, there being no way to bring it into Tilth without a Summer-plowing[140], when the rest of the same Piece, in wider Intervals, being constantly hoed, continued in good Tilth, and never failed to yield a good Crop, without missing one Year.
[140]This Narrowness of the Intervals, if the Damage of it be rightly computed, would amount to half the Inheritance of the Land; and was occasioned by the Wilfulness of my Bailiff, who, drilling it upon the Level, ordered the Horse to be guided half a Yard within the Mark, because he fansied the Intervals would be too wide, if he followed my Directions.
In another Field, there is now a Sixth Crop of Wheat, in wide Intervals, very promising, tho’ this Ground has had no sort of Dung to any of these Crops, or in several Years before them: The last Year’s Crop was the Fifth, and was the best of the Five, tho’ a Yard of the Row yielded but Eighteen Ounces and Three Quarters; and the Third Crop yielded Twenty Ounces Weight[141] of clean Wheat in the same Spot; but ’twas because the Spot where the Twenty grew, was then a little higher than the rest, which in Two Years became more equal; and the thin Land was more deficient in that Third Crop, than the thick Land exceeded the thin in the Fifth Crop.
[141]Wheat, before Harvest, standing in Rows with wide Intervals betwixt them, may not seem, to the Eye, to equal a Crop of half the Bigness dispersed all over the Land, when sown in the common Manner; and yet there is more Deceit in the Appearance of those different Crops, whilst they are young, and in Grass: We should therefore not judge of them then by our Imagination, but as we do of the Sun and Moon nigh the Horizon, viz. by our Reason.
Imagination often deceives us by Arguments false or precarious; but Reason leads us to Demonstration, by Weights and Measures: Yet this Prejudice will vanish at Harvest before weighing; for then all those wide Intervals that were bare, will be covered with large Ears interfering to hide them quite, and make a finer Appearance than a sown Crop. But ’tis observed, that the Cone-wheat makes the finest Shew, when you look on it length ways of the Rows, both at Harvest, and a considerable time before Harvest.
In the thick the Hoe-plough went deeper, and consequently raised more Pasture there; but then it went the shallower in the thin; and when the Land became of a more equal Depth the Fifth Year, the Plough and the Hoe-plough went deeper, all the Piece being taken together; for the Crop could be but in proportion to the different Pasture, allowing somewhat for the more or less Seasonableness of the Year.