By what means Ploughs and Tillage itself came at first to be invented is uncertain; therefore we are at Liberty to guess: And it seems most probable, that it was, like most other Inventions, found out by Accident, and that the first Tillers or Plowers of the Ground were Hogs: Men in those Days, having sufficient Leisure for Speculation, observ’d, that when any sort of Seed happen’d to fall on a Spot of Ground well routed up by the Swine (which Instinct had instructed to dig in Search of their Food), it grew and prospered much better than in the whole unbroken Turf. This Observation must naturally induce rational Creatures to the Contrivance of some Instrument, which might imitate, if not excel Brutes in this Operation of breaking and dividing the Surface of the Earth, in order to increase and better its Product.

That some such Accident gave Men the First Hints of original Agriculture, may be inferr’d from the very little (or no) Probability of its being invented originally upon Arguments which might convince the Understanding (by just Conclusions from Ideas of the Earth and Vegetation) of any reasonable Grounds to hope, that the Effect of increasing the Earth’s Produce should follow the Cause of Tillage; or, in other Words, why it should produce more when tilled than when untilled. Therefore it is very unlikely, that Men should begin to take Pains to till the Land without any Sort of Reason why they did it. And no such Reason could they have before the Invention, as they had afterwards: For when they accidentally saw that Effect follow that Cause, then they were well convinced it did so. But tho’ this Argument, viz. Tillage increases the Product of the Earth, because it does, has been sufficient to continue the Practice of Tillage ever since; yet it is impossible for the Inventors to have had this Argument before the Invention, in case it had been invented by Men, and not fortuitously discover’d.

Had there ever been extant any other or better Arguments, whereon this Practice, so useful to Mankind, was founded; sure, some of all the great and learned Authors, who have written on this Subject, would have mention’d them. Philosophers, Orators, and Poets, have treated of it in the same Theory by which it was first discover’d, and by no other; viz. Land produces more when tilled; and some seem to say, the more it is tilled, the more it produces. It does, because it does; not a Word of the Pasture of Plants, or any thing like it. So that all the antient Scriptores de re rusticâ have done, was only to keep that Theory in the same Degree of Perfection in which the first Discoverers received it.

The bristled Animals broke up the Ground, because they used to find their Food there by digging; Men till it, because they find Tillage procures them better Food than Acorns.

The Reasons are the same for one and the other.

These Writers, asham’d to acknowlege so noble a Discovery to be owing to so mean a Foundation, make no mention of the true Teachers, but attribute the Invention to Ceres, a Goddess of their own makeing; she, as they pretend, first taught the Art of Tillage. With this Fable they were so well pleased, that they never attempted to improve that Art, lest they should derogate from the Divinity of Ceres, in supposing her Invention imperfect.

With what Instrument Men first tilled the Ground we don’t know exactly; but there may be Reasons to believe it was with the Spade, and probably a wooden one, and very rough.

For whilst People liv’d on Acorns, there was no need of the Smith; such Food required no Knives for eating it, nor was it worth while to make Swords to fight for it; and without Iron the Spade could not be well hewn, or shap’d; but if it had been such as it is at present, there never was any thing comparable to it, for the true Use of Tillage. Yet the Spade could not make that Expedition, which was necessary when Tillage became general in the Fields; and therefore in time the Spade came wholly to be appropriate to the most perfect Sort of Tillage in the Garden. Then the Plough supply’d the Place of the Spade in the Field; and tho’ it could not (such as it was) till the Land near so well, yet it could till ten times more of it, and with less human Labour.

Why they did not improve the Plough, so that it might also till as well as the Spade, seems owing to their Primitive Theory, which gave no Mathematical Reason to shew wherein the true Method of Tillage did consist; viz. in dividing the Earth into many Parts, to increase its internal Superficies, which is the Pasture of Plants.

The Difference betwixt the Operation of the Spade, and that of the common Plough, is only this; that the former commonly divides the Soil into smaller Pieces, and goes deeper.

How easy and natural it is to contrive a Plough that may equal the Spade, if not exceed it, in going deeper, and cutting the Soil into smaller Pieces, than the Spade commonly does, I leave to the Judgment of those who have seen the Four-coulter’d Plough.

The Plough describ’d by Virgil had no Coulter; neither do I remember to have seen any Coulter in Italy, or the South of France; and, as I have been informed, the Ploughs in Greece, and all the East, are of much the same Fashion: Neither is it practicable to use a Coulter in such a Plough; because the Share does not cut the Bottom of the Furrow horizontally, but obliquely; in going one way, it turns off the Furrow to the right Hand; but in coming back, it turns it to the Left[256]. Therefore, if it had a Coulter, it must have been on the wrong Side every other Furrow: And besides, as the Handle (for it has but one) always holds the Plough towards one Side, with the Bottom of the Share towards the unplow’d Land, it would cause the Coulter to go much too low when it went on the Furrow-side, and it would not touch the Ground, when it went on the Land-side.

’Tis a great Mistake in those who say Virgil’s Plough had Two Earth-boards; for it had none at all; but the Share itself always going obliquely, served instead of an Earth-board; and the Two Ears, which were the Corners of a Piece of Wood lying under the Share, did the Office of Ground-wrests: This Fashion continues to this Day in those Countries, and in Languedoc.

This sort of Plough performs tolerably when Ground is fine, and makes a shift to break up light Land; and I could never find any other Land there; I am sure none comparable to ours for Strength: And it would be next to impossible, to break up such as we in England call strong Land with it.

I do not find, that the Arable Lands about Rome are ever suffered to lie still long enough to come to a Turf; but I have observed in the low rich Lands in the Calabria’s, subject to the Invasions of the Turks, that there is Turf, and that these Ploughs go over the Land Two or Three times before the Turf of it is all broken, tho’ the Soil be a very mellow Sort of Garden-mould. Having no Coulters to cut it, they break and tear Turf into little Pieces. This was done in the Month of November; and had I not seen Men and Oxen at the Work, or had there been Oaks in the Place, I should rather have thought that Tillage performed by a Race of the first Teachers of it, in muzzling Acorns, than by Ploughs. However, the Mould being naturally very mellow, when the Turf is broken with shallow Plowing, they can plow deeper afterwards.

The English Ploughs are very different from the Eastern, as in general the Soil is.

These, when well made, cut off the Furrow at the Bottom horizontally; and therefore, it being as thick on the Land-side as on the Furrow-side, the Plough cannot break it off from the whole Land, at such a Thickness (being Six times greater than the Eastern Ploughs have to break off), and must of Necessity have a Coulter to cut it off: By this means the Furrow is turned perfectly whole, and no Part of the Turf of it broken; and if it lie long without new turning, the Grass from the Edges will spread, and form a new Turf (or Swerd) on the other Side, which was the Bottom of the Furrow before turning, but is now become the Surface of the Earth, and may soon become greener with Grass than before Plowing; and often the very Roots send up new Heads to help to stock the reversed Furrow, the former Heads being converted into Roots, so that it is doubly cloathed and braced on both Sides, or, as it were, kay’d together, firm and solid, almost as a Plank; it may be drawn from one Side of a Field to the other without breaking, and might possibly be made use of, instead of Virgil’s Crates Viminea, for harrowing or smoothing of fine-tilled Ground; but not without much Time, Labour, and Difficulty, can it be made such itself.

If you plow whole strong turfy Furrows cross-ways, as Virgil directs, and as it is too commonly practised, the Coulter cannot easily cut them, because, being loose underneath, they do not make a sufficient Resistance or Pressure against its Edge, but move before it, and so are apt to be drawn and driven up into Heaps, with their Surfaces lying all manner of Ways, and situate in all manner of Postures: So the Turf, which is not turned, continuing in the open Air, grows on, and with its vigorous Roots holds the Earth fast together, and will not suffer the necessary Division to be made, which would be, if the Turf were rotten, and which is the End of all Tillage, viz. to increase the Pasture of Plants.

Next, some have vast heavy Drags, with great long Iron Tines in them; and tho’ these huge broken Pieces of Furrows, being looser than before, require keener Edges to cut them; yet these Drag-tines have no Edge at all, but are as blunt as the Furrows they should cut. These Drags draw them sometimes into larger Heaps, leaving the under Stratum bare betwixt them, only shaking off some of their Mould in tumbling them about, and scratching their Surfaces, without reducing them to a moderate Fineness, until this ill-broken Land has, for above a Year, and sometimes longer, entertained Ploughs, Cattle, and Men, with a frequent laborious Exercise, for which they are obliged to the one Coulter.

If the Soil be shallow, it may be broken up with a narrow Furrow, which will the sooner be brought in Tilth; but if it be a deep Soil, the Furrows must be proportionably large, or else a Part of the good Mould must be left under unmoved, and so lost; for a narrow Furrow cannot be plowed deep, because the Plough will continually slip out from the hard Land toward the Right-hand, unless the rising Furrow be of sufficient Weight to press the Plough towards the Left, and keep it in its Work: The deeper you plow, the greater Weight is required to press it; so that the deeper your Land is, the worse (or into the larger Furrows) must it be broken up with one Coulter, insomuch that, if the Land be strong (as most deep Ground in England is), it is a Work of some Years to conquer it, after it has been rested. And often it happens, that the excessive Charge of this Tillage reduces the Profit of rich Land below that of poor.

This gives an Opportunity to deceitful Servants, of imposing upon their ignorant Masters. They plow such deep Land with a small shallow Furrow, to the end the Turf and Furrows may be broken, and made fine the sooner; pretending they will plow it deeper the next time (which is called Stirring), which these Rogues know very well cannot be done, and intend no more than that the Plough coming the easier after the Horses, their Coats may shine the better; and tho’ there be no Crop at Harvest, they must have Four Meals a Day all the Year, and extravagant Wages at Michaelmas, or at any time of the Year, when they think fit to misbehave themselves.

This sort of Land must not be stirred, i. e. plowed the Second time in wet Weather; for that will cause the Grass and Weeds to multiply, besides the treading the Ground into hard Dabs, &c. And, in dry Weather, the Plough will never enter any deeper than it went the first time; the Resistance below being so much more than the Pressure above, the Plough will rise up continually; or, if it goes deep enough for the Weight of Earth to keep it down, another Inconvenience will follow, which is that mentioned by Columella, Page 47. Quod omnis humus, quamvis lætissima, tamen inferiorem partem jejuniorem habet, eamque attrahunt excitatæ majores glebæ; quo evenit, ut infœcundior materia mista pinguiori segetem minus uberem reddat. The vulgar English Phrase is, It spaults up from below the Staple. Hence the treacherous Plowman is secure of an easy Summer’s Work, if he can persuade his Master to suffer him to fallow the Ground with a shallow Furrow.

Another way to conquer a strong Turf is, to plow it first with a Breast-plough, very thin; and, when the Swerd is rotten, then plow it at the proper Depth: But this Method is (besides the extraordinary Charge of it) liable to other great Misfortunes. If the Turf be pared up in Winter, or early in the Spring, it is a Chance but the Rains cause it to grow stronger than before, instead of its Rotting.

And if it be pared later, tho’ dry Weather do follow, and continue long enough to kill the Turf, yet this loses time; the Season of plowing is retarded; for all the Staple still remains untilled; and, before that can be well done, the Year is too far spent for sowing it with Wheat, which is the most proper Grain for such strong Land[257]; and few will have Patience to wait, and plow on till another Wheat-seed time. The dry Weather also, which in Summer kills the Swerd, renders the Plowing obnoxious to most or all the Evils afore-mentioned.

A Farmer inquires concerning the Four-coulter Plough, as in the following Dialogue.

Farm. What must we do then? Must we have recourse to the Spade for breaking up our rich, strong, swerdy Land?

Resp. If you can procure Men to dig it faithfully in Pieces, not above Two Inches and an half thick, at the Price of about Eight Shillings per Acre, it would do very well, and answer all the Ends of Tillage; but, tho’ you bargain with them to dig it at that Size for Three Pounds per Acre, you will find, upon Examination, most of the Pieces or Spits, which are dug out of your Sight, to be of twice that Thickness. And no great Quantities can be this way managed, altho’ the Price of Corn should answer such an extravagant Expence.

Farm. Since it is so difficult to bring our strong Land into Tilth, after it has rested, that it cannot be speedily done by a Plough without a Coulter, or by one with a Coulter, in wet Weather or dry, nor with a Breast-plough, without a certain Expence, and an uncertain Success, the Spade is too chargeable a Tillage for the Field: It seems to me, upon the Whole, that we are Losers by this inaratæ gratia terræ, unless we could contrive some other Method of reducing it sooner, and with less Charge, into Tilth; for I observe, that, when we sow it upon the Back, the Corn and Grass (or Couch), coming both together, exhaust the Ground so much, that by that time we can (which is about Three Years) reduce the great Lumps to a tolerable Fineness, it grows full of Grass and Weeds (which we call Foul), and loses that Fertility we expected it should acquire by Rest, becoming, in our Terms, both out of Tilth, and out of Heart.

Resp. If you know all this to be true, and that without a Coulter you cannot break it up at all; and that with one Coulter you cannot any way cut the Furrow small enough, or less than Ten Inches broad; why do not you cut it with Four Coulters, which will reduce the same Furrow into Four equal Parts, of Two Inches and an half each in Breadth, and of the Depth of the Staple, tho’ that should be Two Spit, or Sixteen Inches deep?

Farm. How can that be done?

Resp. Every jot as easily as with one Coulter: For, before the Furrow is raised by the Share, it lies fast, and makes a sufficient Resistance equally against the Edges of all the Coulters; tho’, after it be raised and loose, it yields and recedes every way, except downwards; so that it cannot be cut by any Edge, but such as attacks it perpendicularly from above, as that of the Spade does.

Farm. This seems to me reasonable; and, having very lately heard talk of this Plough, I would gladly know more of it.

Resp. The Furrow, being cut into Four Parts, has not only Four times the Superficies on the Eight Sides which it would have had on Two Sides; but it is also more divided cross-ways; viz. The Ground-wrest presses and breaks the lower (or Right-hand) Quarter; the other Three Quarters, in rising and coming over the Earth-board, must make a crooked Line about a Fourth longer than the strait one they made before moved; therefore their Thinness not being able to hold them together, they are broken into many more Pieces, for want of Tenacity to extend to a longer Line, contrary to a whole Furrow, whose great Breadth enables it to stretch and extend from a shorter to a longer Line, without breaking; and, as it is turned off, the Parts are drawn together again by the Spring of the Turf or Swerd[258], and so remain whole after Plowing. Thus the Four-coultered Plow can divide the Soil into above Twenty times more Parts than the common Plough; and sometimes, when the Earth is of a right Temper betwixt wet and dry, the Earth-board, in turning the Furrows off, will break them into Dust, having more Superficies than is made by Four common Plowings; and it is impossible there should be any large Pieces amongst it.

Now, what a prodigious Advantage must the Influences of the Atmosphere have upon these small Parts, for making a further Division of them! Frost, Water, Drought, and nitrous Air, easily penetrate to their very Centers, which cannot in the largest of them be more than one Inch and a Quarter distant from their Superficies. This Advantage, with a few subsequent common Plowings, performed in proper Seasons, resolves the Earth almost all to a Powder. The Swerd, some being immersed or buried and mixed among so great a Proportion of Mould, is soon rotten and lost; some of the Swerd lying loose a-top, the Earth presently drops out of it; and then the Roots are dried up, and die. Thus is the whole Staple of the Ground brought into perfect Tilth in a very short time beyond what the Spade ever does in such swerdy Land.

Farm. What sort of Weather is best for using this Plough?

Resp. Any Weather, except the Ground be so dry and hard that the Plough cannot enter it; but it is very proper to be done, when the Earth is so wet, that by no means it ought to be plowed with any other Plough; for it never can be too moist for this, unless the Cattle which draw it be mired; because, tho’ all the Cattle should not go in the Furrow, yet their Treadings are cut so small by the Coulters, that the Earth is not kept from dissolving, as when turned off whole in common Tillage. ’Tis observed, that the Incisions made by the Coulters on swerdy Land, will not heal, or so close up, but that they will open again by the next Plowing, though it be a great while after. A Farmer who uses this Plough, may till in all Weathers and all Seasons of the Year, either in fallowing with this, which is best in wet, or in stirring with the common ones, which must be done in dry Weather; and when the Ground is broken up with this, it may be stirred in the driest Weather that can be, without the Danger of tearing (or spaulting) up of the under Stratum along with the Staple, because this is all broken before, and then no more can rise with it; as it does to the Ruin of the Soil, when in common Tillage they go deeper the Second time than the First: Also, if there be a Necessity of stirring some sort of Land when it is wet, it ought either to be done with this Plough, or else with a common one drawn by a single Row of Cattle treading all in the Furrow; for tho’ some Land be very fine, yet, when plowed by a double Row of Cattle in wet Weather, it will be made into large Pieces by the Treading, and perhaps not dissolve again in a long time: Therefore it is better to be prevented.

Farm. I perceive this Plough lays the Foundation for all good Husbandry; and there can be no other way to bring Land into perfect Tilth in so short a Time, or with so little Expence. And I am convinc’d, that no Farmer ought to be without it, who desires to be free from the Danger of his Land being ever out of Tilth: But I have heard it objected, that it is harder to draw than the common Ploughs; and that its Beam being longer, upon account of the Four Coulters, it lies farther behind, and comes harder after the Horses.

Resp. I must confess, there is something in that Objection; for this Plough, being something longer, may be a little the harder Draught; and also its Weight and Strength must bear a Proportion to the Length of it. But this small Increase of the Draught would have been a much stronger (if not a fatal) Objection, had that Custom been general, of Horses drawing by their Tails, as ’tis said to have been formerly in some Places; for then, perhaps, a sufficient Strength of Horses could not be applied to the Plough. But in Countries where Traces are in Use, every Horse of the Team may draw the Plough equally, and then there will be no other Inconvenience, besides the adding one Horse, or keeping a stronger Team: And he cannot be wise, who would lose the Profit of his Land, for the Odds of sometimes adding a Horse to his Plough. And I am very certain, that this Plough requires a much less Strength of Cattle to draw it in moist Weather, which is the most proper to use it in, than to draw a common Plough in the same Ground, and at the same Depth, in dry Weather; and can seldom be used safely in any other. And the Vulgar, who have always a wrong Cause ready at hand to apply to every thing, impute that Draught to the Fashion of the Plough, which ought to be imputed to its going deeper; and this great Depth at which ’tis capable of plowing, viz. Two Spit deep, is one extraordinary Benefit of it, tho’ it may, on Occasion, go as shallow as any.

The Draught is not so much increased by adding Three Coulters, as may be imagined; for when the Ground is moist, the Incisions are easily made by the Edges; and when they are cut small, the Furrows rise much more easily upon the Share and Earth-Board, than if whole.

Farm. If this Plough be so beneficial, having so many Advantages, and only the Two Inconveniencies, one of requiring a little more Strength to draw it, and the other its being unfit for dry hard Ground, I wonder why it is not become more common?

Resp. It has been used with very great Success for these several Years last past, but never like to be common, unless it be described in a more geometrical Manner, than any Plough has hitherto been; for the Plough-wrights find it difficult enough to make a common Plough with one Coulter to perform as it ought, for want of the necessary Rules of their Art. It is upon this Account that the Two-coulter’d Ploughs are used in few Places, though they have been found of excellent Use, and have been formerly common: But, alas! when the Makers, who by their diligent Study and much Practice had attained the Perfection of their Art, died for want of learning to write their Rules mathematically, and shew how the mechanical Powers were applicable to them, the Art was in a Manner lost, at the Death of those Artists; and then the unskilful Plough-wrights, destitute of the true Rules, were not able to make a Two-coulter’d Plough to perform well, and then it was left off. Very lately ’tis revived, since the Three and Four-coulter’d ones have been used; from whence some have made a Shift to take the Rules of placing Two Coulters into a Plough, and they begin to be common again; and, no doubt, will cease again as soon as the Rules are forgot.

’Tis strange that no Author should have written fully of the Fabric of Ploughs! Men of the greatest Learning have spent their Time in contriving Instruments to measure the immense Distance of the Stars, and in finding out the Dimensions, and even Weight, of the Planets: They think it more eligible to study the Art of plowing the Sea with Ships, than of tilling the Land with Ploughs; they bestow the utmost of their Skill, learnedly, to pervert the natural Use of all the Elements for Destruction of their own Species, by the bloody Art of War. Some waste their whole Lives in studying how to arm Death with new Engines of Horror, and inventing an infinite Variety of Slaughter; but think it beneath Men of Learning (who only are capable of doing it) to employ their learned Labours in the Invention of new (or even improving the old) Instruments for increasing of Bread.

The easiest Method of perpetuating the Use of the many coulter’d Ploughs, and other newly-invented Instruments of Husbandry, is by Models, i. e. the Things themselves in little; and these may be all portable even in a Man’s Pocket: Every Part must be fully described, with the true Dimensions, and the mathematical Reasons, on which their Contrivance is founded. Directions also for using them must be given at the same time that their Manner of making is described. In some, the very Horses which draw must be represented, to shew the manner of fixing the Horses, and the Traces: Cautions against all the Errors that may happen by the want of Experience in the Makers or Users, must be given.

When this is done, and the Rules put into a Method, the new Hoeing-Husbandry, in all its Branches, will be much more easy and certain than the old; because there are no mathematical Rules extant in any Method; and a Man may practise the old random Husbandry all his Life, without attaining so much Certainty in Agriculture as may be learned in a few Hours from such a Treatise.

The Rules, indeed, require much Labour, Study, and Experience, to compose them; but when finish’d, will be most easy to practise: Like the Rules for measuring Timber; their Use is, at first Sight, easy to every Carpenter, and to most Artificers who work in Wood; but no illiterate Person is able to compose those Rules, or to measure Timber without them.