56 CULTURE OF ANNUAL PLANTS. Part L 



refemblance to the common hoeing. 'Tis chiefly with this that he 

 plows the alleys, or cultivates plants while they are growing. 



Mr. Tull has not only contrived inftruments to bring the earth 

 to a proper tilth, and others to preferve it io ; but, convinced that 

 in the common method of fowing, the feed is neither diflribiited 

 equally, nor buried at the proper depth each kind of feed requires, 

 he has likewife invented a Jower, or what he calls a drill-ploiigh, 

 which makes the furrows, drops each grain at its proper depth and 

 diftance, and, filling up the furrow again, -covers the feed. — As 

 this inftrument does not feem to us fui-Jiciently complete, we fliall 

 give, in the laft part of this work, dei'criptions of other foivers, 

 which we think preferable to his. 



CHAP. X. 



Of the advantage of cultivating annual Plants ivhile they grow, as the 

 Vine and other perennial Plants are cultivated. 



THE earth is generally prepared to fit it for receiving the feeds 

 of annual plants ; after which, fome few leguminous plants 

 excepted, they are left to fhift for themfelves, till they have yielded 

 that part for which they are cultivated. 



But we propofe tilling the earth during the growth of annual 

 plants, as is done with the vine and other perennials in different 

 feafons of the year. 



This propofition is a natural confequence of what we have faid 

 before : for as we have fliewn that tillage is of very great fervice to 

 plants, it is proper to make ufe of it when they are in moft 

 need of food. Though land be never fo well tilled in autumn, it 

 hardens or faddens in the winter; its particles approach one another; 

 weeds fpring up, which rob the ufeful plants of their nourifliment ; 

 and at the end of the winter, the ground is in nearly the fame condi- 

 tion as if it had not been plowed at all. Yet it is at this feafon that 

 plants ought to fhoot with the greatefl vigour. They confequently 

 now ftand more in need of the plough, to deftroy weeds, to lay 

 frefh earth to their roots in the room of that which they have ex- 

 haufted, to break the particles of the earth anew, to enable the roots 

 to extend themfelves, and gather that ample provifion of food of 

 which they at this time ftand in the greatefl need. 



In the common hufbandry, the whole attention is to provide a 



great flore of nourifhment for wheat, at a time when it fcarce con- 



2 fumes 



