"Tull was quite an original genius and a century in advance of his time. I consider he has been most unjustly accused of not placing sufficient value upon farmyard manure; he advocated cleanliness, and saw that dung was a great carrier of weeds. To give some clear idea of the value of Tull's advocacy of drill-husbandry and the freedom from weed which can alone be obtained by the use of the drill, I may mention that so far as statistics will allow, I have ascertained the average yield of the wheat crop of the world, and I am able to say that the average yield is less than it is at the present time upon my permanent wheat land, after more than sixty years absolutely without manure. Here we have the result of Tull's three great principles—drilling, reduction of seed, and absence of weed. If he were alive now and were writing for the agriculture of the world, he would, I think, be quite justified in saying everything he said in regard to cleanliness and manure."
As a result of his studies, travels, and experiments, Tull published "The New Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: or an Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation" in the year 1731. The great value of this work is that it is founded not upon mere theory, but upon actual experiments in the field. The fourth edition, which I have beside me, consists of 426 pages, with several plates, and 23 chapters which treat of the following subjects: Of Roots and Leaves; Of Food of Plants; Of Pastures of Plants; Of Dung; Of Tillage; Of Weeds; Of Turnips; Of Wheat; Of Smuttiness; Of Lucerne; Of Change of Species; Of Change of Individuals; Of Ridges; Old and New Husbandry; Of Ploughs; The Four-Coulter'd Plough; Of the Drill-Boxes; Of the Wheat-Drill: Of the Turnip-Drill; Of the Hoe-Plough; with an appendix concerning the making of the drill and the hoe-plough.
Tull's idea—which was that by tillage soils might be constantly and for ever reinvigorated or renewed—is summed up in his famous epigram, "tillage is manure." He believed that the earth was the true and the sole food of the plant, and, further, that the plant feeds and grows by taking in minute particles of soil. And since these particles are thrown off from the surface of the soil grains, it followed, therefore, that the more finely the soil was divided the more numerous the particles and the more readily the plant would grow. Although Tull's theories were wrong, his practice has been followed by all progressive farmers down to the present time. We now know that plants do not absorb particles of earth, but take in food in solution. Consequently, the more the particles of soil are broken up and refined, the more plant food the roots can absorb. In this volume, which must be counted an agricultural classic, Tull at once takes rank as the foremost preacher of his time of the gospel of deep and perfect tillage. And it is a work which, in the words of his great compeer, Arthur Young, will "unquestionably carry his name to the latest posterity."
The botanical world has recently been illumined by the splendid discovery of the principles of heredity set forth by Gregor Mendel, and the foremost exponent of the new science, Professor Bateson, writes as follows: "We have at last a brilliant method and a solid basis from which to attack these problems, offering an opportunity to the pioneer such as occurs but seldom even in the history of modern science." Cannot we, as agriculturists, say the same with equal truth? For, to our thinking, Jethro Tull bears the same relation to dry-farming that Mendel does to plant-breeding. For if, on the one hand, his drill-ploughs are the models from which have been derived the marvellous agricultural machines of modern times, then, on the other, his clean husbandry, his seed selection, his deep and constant tillage are the fundamental principles in the great new science of dry-farming. Nor should we forget that both Mendel and Tull enunciated their principles only after long and patient experiment.
The principles which we have adopted in our experiments on the Government Dry-Land Station at Lichtenburg, in the Transvaal and which we propose to follow on all stations hereafter to be established in the Union of South Africa, are seven in number, namely: (1) Deep ploughing; (2) drilling; (3) thin seeding; (4) frequent harrowing; (5) weedless lands; (6) few varieties; and (7) moisture-saving fallows. And we know full well that the more faithfully we adhere to this scheme the richer shall be our harvests. But, after all, these principles are merely the amplification, nothing more, of those fundamental methods of tillage so plainly set forth, one hundred and eighty-two years ago, by the genius of Jethro Tull.
Tull died in the month of March, in the year 1740, at the age of sixty-six. In speaking of agricultural education we have frequently urged the benefits to be derived from a liberal education, and we like to recall Tull's own words: "I owe my principles and practice originally to my travels, as I owe my drill to my organ." Here indeed, was a man of many parts—a famous agriculturist, an able mechanic, a good musician, and a keen classical scholar. His life, strange to say, was one dauntless struggle with disease. For six years he scarce ever left his room, and seldom in that period was he gladdened by so much as a glimpse of his "hundred acres of drilled wheat." So they laid the tired body of the simple-minded English squire under the yew-trees of Basildon in the mellow soil he loved so well. But the bells of the old church of Saint Bartholomew now ring out with a new, glad message, for they tell the toiling husbandmen of all lands to be of good cheer, for the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; while the winds and the waters carry the echo of Tull's name down through the corridors of time.