[55]Mr. Houghton calculates, that a Crop of Wheat of Thirty Quarters to an Acre, each Ear has two Inches and a Half of Surface; by which ’tis evident, that there would be Room for many such prodigious Crops to stand on.
And a Quick-hedge, standing between two Arable Grounds, one Foot broad at Bottom, and Eighteen Feet in Length, will, at fourteen Years Growth, produce more of the same Sort of Wood, than eighteen Feet square of a Coppice will produce in the same Time, the Soil of both being of equal Goodness.
This seems to be the same Case with our ho’d Rows; the Coppice, if it were to be cut in the first Years, would yield perhaps ten Times as much Wood, as the Hedge; but many of the Shoots of the Coppice constantly die every Year, for Want of sufficient Nourishment, until the Coppice is fit to be cut; and then its Product is much less than that of the Hedge, whose Pasture has not been over-stock’d to such a Degree as the Coppice-Pasture has been; and therefore brings its Crop of Wood to greater Perfection than the Coppice-Wood, which has Eighteen Times the Surface of Ground to stand on; The Hedge has the Benefit of Hoeing, as oft as the Land on either Side of it is till’d; but the Coppice, like the sown Corn, wants that Benefit.
In wide Intervals there is another Advantage of Hoeing, I mean Horse-hoeing (the other being more like Scratching and Scraping than Hoeing): There is room for many Hoeings[56], which must not come very near the Bodies of some annual Plants, except whilst they are young; but in narrow Intervals, this cannot be avoided at every Hoeing: ’Tis true, that in the last Hoeings, even in the middle of a large Interval, many of the Roots may be broken off by the Hoe-plough, at some considerable Distance from the Bodies; but yet this is no Damage, for they send out a greater Number of Roots than before; as in Chap. I. appears.
[56]Many Hoeings; but if it should be asked how many, we may take Columella’s Rule in hoeing the Vines, viz. Numerus autem vertendi Soli (bidentibus) definiendus non est, cum quanto crebrior fit, plus prodesse fossionem conveniat. Sed impersarum Ratio modum postulat. Lib. 4. Cap. 5.
Neither is it altogether the Number of Hoeings that determines the Degrees of Pulveration: For, Once well done, is Twice done; and the oftener the better, if the Expence be not excessive.
Poor Land, be it never so light, should have the most Hoeings; because Plants, receiving but very little Nourishment from the natural Pasture of such Land, require the more artificial Pasture to subsist on.
In wide Intervals, those Roots are broken off only where they are small; for tho’ they are capable of running out to more than the Length of the external Parts of a Plant; yet ’tis not necessary they should always do so; if they can have sufficient Food nearer to the Bodies[57] of the Plants.
[57]All the Mould is never so near to the Bodies of Plants, as ’tis when the Row stands on a high Six-feet Ridge, when the middle of the Interval is left bare of Earth, at the last Hoeing; for then all the Mould may be but about a Foot, or a Foot and half, distant from the Body of each Plant of a Treble Row.
And these new, young, multiply’d Roots are fuller of Lacteal Mouths than the older ones; which makes it no Wonder, that Plants should thrive faster by having some of their Roots broken off by the Hoe; for as Roots do not enter every Pore of the Earth, but miss great Part of the Pasture, which is left unexhausted, so when new Roots strike out from the broken Parts of the old, they meet with that Pasture, which their Predecessors miss’d, besides that new Pasture which the Hoe raises for them; and those Roots which the Hoe pulls out without breaking, and covers again, are turn’d into a fresh Pasture; some broken, and some unbroken: All together invigorate the Plants.
Besides, the Plants of sown Corn, being treble in Number to those of the drill’d, and of equal Strength and Bulk, whilst they are very young, must exhaust the Earth whilst it is open, thrice as much as the drill’d Plants do; and before the sown Plants grow large, the Pores of the Earth are shut against them, and against the Benefit of the Atmosphere; but for the drill’d, the Hoe gives constant Admission to that Benefit; and if the Hoe procures them (by dividing the Earth) Four Times the Pasture of the sown during their Lives, and the Roots devour but one half of that, then tho’ the ho’d Crop should be double to the sown, yet it might leave twice as much Pabulum for a succeeding Crop. ’Tis impossible to bring these Calculations to Mathematical Rules; but this is certain in Practice, that a sown Crop, succeeding a large undung’d ho’d Crop, is much better than a sown Crop, that succeeds a small dung’d sown Crop. And I have the Experience of poor, worn out Heath-ground, that, having produc’d Four successive good ho’d Crops of Potatoes (the last still best), is become tolerable good Ground.
In a very poor Field were planted Potatoes, and, in the very worst Part of it, several Lands had them in Squares a Yard asunder; these were plowed four ways at different times: Some other Lands adjoining to them, of the very same Ground, were very well dung’d and till’d; but the Potatoes came irregularly, in some Places thicker, and in others thinner: These were not ho’d, and yet, at first coming up, looked blacker and stronger than those in Squares not dung’d, either that Year, or ever, that I know of; yet these Lands brought a good Crop of the largest Potatoes, and very few small ones amongst them; but in the dung’d Lands, for Want of Hoeing, the Potatoes were not worth the taking up; which proves, that in those Plants that are planted so as to leave Spaces wide enough for Repetitions of Hoeing, that Instrument can raise more Nourishment to them, than a good Coat of Dung with common Tillage.
Another Thing I have more particularly observ’d, viz. That the more successive Crops are planted in wide Intervals, and often ho’d, the better the Ground does maintain them; the last Crop is still the best, without Dung, or changing the Sort of Plant; and this is visible in Parts of the same Field, where some Part has a first, some other Part a second, the rest a third Crop growing all together at the same time; which seems to prove, that as the Earth is made by this Operation to dispense or distribute her Wealth to Plants, in Proportion to the Increase of her inner Superficies (which is the Pasture of Plants); so the Atmosphere, by the Riches in Rain and Dews, does annually reimburse her in Proportion to the same Superficies, with an Overplus for Interest: But if that Superficies be not increased to a competent Degree, and, by frequent Repetitions of Hoeing, kept increasing (which never happens in common Husbandry) this Advantage is lost; and, without often repeated Stercoration, every Year’s Crop grows worse; and it has been made evident by Trials, which admit of no Dispute, that Hoeing, without Dung or Fallow, can make such Plants as stand in wide Intervals, more vigorous in the same Ground, than both common Dunging and Fallowing can do without Hoeing.
This Sort of Hoeing has in Truth every Year the Effect of a Summer-fallow; tho’ it yearly produce a good Crop.
This is one Reason of the different Effects Plants have upon the Soil; some are said to enrich it, others to burn it, i. e. to impoverish it; but I think it may be observed, that all those Plants, which are usually ho’d, are reckoned among the Enrichers; and tho’ it be certain that some Species of Plants are, by the Heat of their Constitution, greater Devourers than those of another Species of equal Bulk; yet there is Reason to believe, that were the most cormorant Plant of them all to be commonly ho’d, it would gain[58] the Reputation of an Enricher or Improver of the Soil; except it should be such, as might occasion Trouble, by filling it full of its shatter’d Seeds, which might do the Injury of Weeds to the next Crop; and except such Plants, which have a vast Bulk to be maintained a long Time, as Turnep-Seed[59].
[58]But this must be intended of the deep Horse-hoeing; for Turneps that stand for Seed, are such Devourers, and feed so long on the Soil, that tho’ they are Hand-ho’d, such a shallow Operation doth not supply the usual Thickness of those Plants with Pasture sufficient to raise their Stems to half their natural Bulk; and they leave so little of that Pasture behind them, that the Soil is observ’d to be extremely impoverished for a Year or two, and sometimes three Years after them; but ’tis otherwise with my Horse-ho’d Turnep-Seed; for I never fail’d of a good Crop of Barley after it, sown on the Level in the following Spring, tho’ no Dung hath been used on the Land where the Turnep-Seed grew for many Years. And also my Barley Crops thus sown after two successive Crops of Turnep-Seed without a Fallow between them, are as good as those sown after a single Crop of it. For I have several Times made these Turnep-Seed Crops annual, that is, to have Two Crops of it in Two Years, which would in the old Way require three Years, because this Crop stands about a Year on the Ground, and is not ripe till Midsummer, which is too late to get that Land into a Tilth proper to plant another Seed Crop on it the same Summer; neither can the Soil be able to bear such another Crop immediately after being so much exhausted, and unplowed for a whole Year, except it be extraordinary rich, or much dunged: However, Two Crops of Turnep-Seed immediately succeeding one another, is what I never knew, or heard of, except my own that were Horse-ho’d; and of these the second Crop was as good as the first; their Stalks grew much higher than they usually do in the common Way; and tho’ the Number of Plants was much less, their Produce was so valuable, that the Vicar’s Agent declared, he made Twenty Shillings per Acre of his Tythe of a whole Field which he tythed in Kind. The Expence of these Crops was judg’d to be answered by the Fuel of the thresh’d Stalks. It must be noted, that the extraordinary Value of these Crops arose, not from a greater Quantity of Seed than some common Crops; but from their Quality, Experience having brought this Seed into great Esteem, on account of its being perfectly clean, and produced by large Turneps of a good Sort, and of a proper Shape; for those that are not well cultivated are very apt to degenerate, and then their Seed will produce Turneps of a small Size, and of a long rapy ill Shape.
[59]Turneps run to Seed, not till the second Summer.
The wider the Intervals are, the more Earth may be divided; for the Row takes up the same Room with a wide, or a narrow Interval; and therefore with the wide, the unho’d Part bears a less Proportion to the ho’d Part than in the narrow.
And ’tis no Purpose to hoe, where there is not Earth to be ho’d, or Room to hoe it in.
There are many Ways of Hoeing with the Hoe-Plough; but there is not Room to turn Two deep clean Furrows in an Interval that is narrower than Four Feet Eight Inches; for if it want much of this Breadth, one, at least, of these Furrows, will reach, and fall upon the next Row, which will be very injurious to the Plants; except of grown St. Foin, and such other Plants, that can bear to have the Earth pull’d off them by Harrows.
Thus much of Hoeing in general may suffice: And different Sorts of Plants requiring different Management; that may more properly be described in the Chapter, where particular Vegetables are treated of.
It may not be amiss to add, that all Sorts of Land are not equally proper for Hoeing: I take it, that a dry friable Soil is the best. Intractable wet Clays, and such Hills as are too steep for Cattle to draw a Plough up and down them, are the most improper[60].
[60]For by hoeing cross the Hill, the Furrow turn’d against the Declivity cannot be thrown up near enough to the Row above it; and the Furrow that is turn’d downwards will bury the Row below it.
That ’tis not so beneficial to hoe in Common-fields, is not in Respect of the Soil, but to the old Principles, which have bound the Owners to unreasonable Customs of changing the Species of Corn, and make it necessary to fallow every Second, Third, or Fourth Year at farthest.