126 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



every part of the intervals. Notwithstanding this, there was no manner of difference in the goodness of 

 the rows ; and the whole field was in every part of it equal, and the best, I believe, that ever grew on it. It 

 is now the thirteenth crop, likely to be good, though the land was not ploughed cross ways." {Ibid. 

 p. 424.) 



762. According to Tull,a rotation of crops of different species was altogether unnecessary ; 

 and he labors hard to prove against Dr. Woodward, that the advantages of such a change, 

 under his plan of tillage, were quite chimerical ; though he seems to admit the benefit of 

 a change of the seed itself. But the best method of determining the question would have 

 been, to have stated the amount of his crops per acre, and the quality of the grain, instead 

 of resting the superiority of his management on the alleged saving of expence, when com- 

 pared with the common broadcast husbandry. 



763. On the culture of the turnip, both his principles and his practice are much more correct. The ridges 

 were of the same breadth as for wheat ; but only one row was drilled on each. His management, while 

 the crop was growing, differs very little from the present practice. When drilled on the level, it is im- 

 possible, he observes, to hoe-plough them so well as when they are planted upon ridges. But the seed was 

 deposited, at different depths, the half about four inches deep, and the other half exactly over that, at the 

 depth of half an inch. " Thus planted, let the weather be never so dry, the deepest seed will come up ; 

 but if it raineth immediately after planting, the shallow will come up first. We also make it come up at 

 four times, by mixing our seed, half new and half old, the new coming up a day quicker than the old. 

 These four comings up give it so many chances for escaping the fly ; it being often seen, that the seed 

 sown over night will be destroyed by the fly, when that sown the next morning will escape, and vice versa : 

 or you may hoe-plough them when the fly is like to devour them : this will bury the greatest part of those 

 enemies : or else you may drill in another row without new ploughing the land." 



764. Drilling, and horse and hand-hoeing, seem to have been in use before the publi- 

 cation of Tuirs book. " Hoeing," he says, " may be divided into deep, which is one 

 horse-hoeing ; and shallow, which is the English hand-hoeing ; and also the shallow 

 horse-hoeing used in some places betwixt rows, where the intervals are very narrow, as 

 sixteen or eighteen inches. This is but an imitation of the hand-hoe, or a succedaneum 

 to it, and can neither supply the use of dung, nor of fallow, and may be properly called 

 scratch-hoeing." But in his mode of forming ridges, his practice seems to have been 

 original ; his implements display much ingenuity ; and his claim to the title of father of 

 the present horse-hoeing husbandry of Great Britain seems indisputable. A translation of 

 TuU's book was undertaken at one and the same time in France, by three different per- 

 sons of consideration, without the privity of each other. Two of them afterwards put 

 their papers into the hands of the third, M.Du Hamel du Monceau, of the Royal Academy 

 of Sciences, at Paris, who published a treatise on husbandry, on the principles of 

 Tull, a few years after. But TuU seems to have had very few followers in England for 

 more than thirty years. The present method of drilling and horse- hoeing turnips was 

 not introduced into Northumberland till about the year 1780, {Northumberland Survey, 

 p. 100.) ; and it was then borrowed from Scotland, the farmers of which had the merit of 

 first adopting TuU's management in the culture of this root about 1760, and from whom 

 it has since made its way, but slowly, in the southern part of the island. 



765. In the live stock of British agriculture, very little improvement had been made pre- 

 viously to the middle of the eighteenth century, or later. About this time, the best breed 

 of cattle and sheep were about Doncaster, in Yorkshire, and in Leicestershire, and the first 

 grand and successful effort to improve them was made by Robert Bakewell, of Dishley 

 in the latter county. Bakewell was born about 1730; and soon after arriving at the 

 years of maturity, took an interest in improving the breed of sheep. His father was a 

 farmer, and died in 1772 ; but the son had taken an active management of the farm for 

 many years before that period, for we find him letting out rams in 1762. [^Hunth Agricul- 

 tural Memoirs, 35. ) 



766. By BakewelVs skilful selection at first, and constant care afterwards to breed from 

 the best animals, without any regard to their consanguinity, he at last obtained a variety 

 of sheep, which, for early maturity, and the property of returning a great produce of 

 mutton for the food they consume, as well as for the small proportion which the weight 

 of the offal bears to that of the four quarters, are altogether unequalled either in this or 

 any other country. The Dishley or New Leicester sheep, and their crosses, are now 

 spread over the principal corn districts of Britain ; and, from their quiet domesticated 

 habits, are probably still the most profitable of all the varieties of sheep, on farms where 

 the rearing and fattening of live stock are combined with the best courses of tillage 

 crops. 



767. The practice of Bakewell and his followers fiiAishes an instance of the benefits 

 of a division of labor, in a department of business, where it was little to be expected. 

 Their male stock was let out every year to breeders from all parts of England ; and thus, 

 by judiciously crossing the old races, all the valuable properties of the Dishley variety de- 

 scended, after three or four generations, to their posterity. By no other means could 

 this new breed have spread so rapidly, nor have been made to accommodate itself so easily 

 to a change of climate and pasture. Another recommendation of this plan was, that the 

 ram-hirer had a choice among a number of males, of somewhat different properties, and 

 in a more or less advanced stage of improvement ; from which it was his business to select 



