The Husbandry of the Period. 241 



that wlieat might be sown in equidistant rows in the same 

 manner that many plants are in gardens ; with this view he 

 constructed a plough which cut five drills at equal distances, 

 of nine inches asunder. "When he had thus drilled the field, 

 he sowed the corn by hand, and found that it fell regularly 

 into the bottoms of the drills, and required only half the 

 quantity of seed generally sown. The grain, being covered 

 with the harrows, grew regularly in rows : then in order to 

 get rid of the weeds he contrived five hoes on a beam ; so 

 light that a man could draw them, and by this means kept 

 the young corn clear of weeds. 



This principle is of course still in use, where farmers, in 

 order to avoid poaching the heavy land by the horses' feet, sow 

 their corn broadcast in the furrows made by the plough. But 

 on the light land about Richmond some form of the modern 

 seed-drill would have been more advantageous. Worledge, in 

 his Sy sterna Agi'iciilturce, had given a description of a Spanish 

 invention called a rembradore, from which Cook took the idea 

 of his drill plough and hoe. It was preferable in every way 

 to Duckett's rude implement save in one, and that was that 

 every time it got out of order it had to be sent to the imple- 

 ment maker, whereas Duckett's was easily mended by the 

 farmer himself. 



This same ingenious husbandman ^ took to the management 

 of the Richmond farm just after its former occupant, disgusted 

 with the light, hungry nature of its soil, had laid it down to 

 grass. Duckett saw that if he could bury the sward by some 

 contrivance or other, so as to render it available for the roots 

 of cereals, he would for some time be able to cultivate wheat 

 with very little expense in manures. "Without stopping to 

 point out obvious objections to such an economy, we wish 

 merely to state that this idea gave birth to the trenching and 

 three-coultered ploughs. These inventions earned for him the 

 approbation of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc.. 



' This agriculturist received the unique honour of a special article on 

 his methods communicated to the Annals of Agriculture by Geo. III., 

 1787, vol. vii. p. 66. 



n. E 



