RUfA BAG A CULTURE 



published not a bad book on agriculture. It is not bad, because 

 it contains many authentic accounts of experiments made by him 

 self ; though I never can think of his book without thinking, at 

 the same time, of the gross and scandalous plagiarisms, which 

 he has committed upon TULL. Without mentioning particulars, 

 the &quot; Honourable Member &quot; will, I am sure, know what I mean, 

 if this page should ever have the honour to fall under his eye ; 

 and he will, T hope, repent, and give proof of his repentance, by a 

 restoration of the property to the right owner. 



69. However, Mr. CURWEN, in his book, gives an account of the 

 wonderful effects of moving the ground between plants in rows ; 

 and he tells us of an experiment, which he made, and which 

 proved, that from ground just ploughed, in a very dry time, an 

 exhalation of many tons weight, per acre, took place, during the 

 first twenty-four hours after ploughing, and of a less and less 

 number of tons, during the three or four succeeding twenty- 

 four hours ; that, in the course of about a week, the exhalation 

 ceased : and that, during the whole period, the ground, though 

 in the same field, which hadnot been ploughed when the other ground 

 was, exhaled not an ounce ! When I read this in Mr. CURWEN s 

 book, which was before I had read TULL, I called to mind, that, 

 having once dug the ground between some rows of part of a plot 

 of cabbages in my garden, in order to plant some late peas, I 

 perceived (it was in a dry time) the cabbages, the next morning, 

 in the part recently dug, with big drops of dew hanging on the edges 

 of the leaves, and in the other, or undug part of the plot, no drops 

 at all. I had forgotten the fact till I read Mr. CURWEN, and I 

 never knew the cause till I read the real Father of English 

 Husbandry. 



70. From this digression I return to the history, first of my 

 English transplanting. I saw, at once, that the only way to ensure 

 a crop of turnips was by transplantation. The next year, there 

 fore, I prepared a field of five acres, and another of twelve. I made 

 ridges, in the manner described, for sowing ; and, on the 7th of 

 June in the first field, and on the 2Oth of July in the second field, 

 I planted my plants. I ascertained to an exactness, that there 

 were thirty-three tons to an acre, throughout the whole seventeen 

 acres. After this, I never used any other method. I never saw 

 above half as great a crop in any other person s land ; and, though 

 we read of much greater in agricultural prise reports, they must 

 have been of the extent of a single acre, or something in that way. 

 In my usual order, the ridges four feet asunder, and the plants a 



foot asunder on the ridge, there were ten thousand eight hundred 

 and thirty turnips on the acre of ground ; and, therefore, for an 

 acre to weigh thirty-three tons, each turnip must weigh very nearly 

 seven pounds. After the time here spoken of, I had an acre or 

 two at the end of a large field, transplanted on the i3th of July, 

 which probably, weighed fifty tons an acre. I delayed to have 

 them weighed till a fire happened in some of my farm buildings, 



5 2 



