62 CULTURE OF ANNUAL PLANTS. Part L 



A quick-hedge, planted between two plowed fields, of only a 

 foot thicknefs at bottom, and eighteen feet in length, will yield at 

 the end of fourteen years, as much wood as a copfe of the fame 

 wood, which Ihould be eighteen feet fquare. Yet if both be cut 

 down every year, the copfe will yield perhaps ten times the quan- 

 tity of wood that hedge would do. Why does a fpace of eighteen 

 feet fquare planted in copfe-wood diminiih in the quantity of wood 

 it yields, more than a hedge does, after each of them has flood 

 feveral years ? It is evident that the difference confifls in the copfe 

 lofing every year a great number of branches for want of air and 

 nourifliment, and by its not being aflifled by culture. This com- 

 parifon fliews the great benefit that may be expefted from the new 

 hufbandry. 



If it be faid that plowing will break the roots of the plants ; I 

 anfwer, that fome of thefe roots will only be removed to another 

 place and into a frefh earth, and that thofe which are broken will 

 be fo only at their extremities, which, as we faid before, will make 

 them fhoot out a greater number of new roots, fitter than the old 

 ones to draw the nourishment of plants from the earth. There is 

 no doubt but that one of the chief advantages arifmg from hoeing, 

 digging, or plowing, is this cutting of the roots. 



The plough has perhaps this advantage over the fpade, that the 

 latter cuts all the roots it meets with j whereas the plough often 

 does no more than remove them from one place to another, from 

 an exhaufted, to a frefh earth. 



Befides, when Jand is fowed according to our method, it is lefs 

 exhaufted than in the common way ; or rather, it will be in a 

 <:ondition to fupply feveral crops of wheat, which will become better 

 and better every year, becaufe the corn is fown in beds made in the 

 middle of the former alleys, where the earth has been thoroughly 

 and deeply plowed. This will be more fully proved hereafter. 

 In the mean time we fliall mention an experiment of Mr. Tull's, 

 which confirms what we have been faying. 



Half of a poor field, but well dunged, was planted in the common 

 way with potatoes. The other half of the fame field was planted in 

 beds, according to the new hufbandry, and plov/ed four times while 

 the potatoes grew. The potatoes feemed, at firfl, to thrive befl: in 

 the part that was planted in the common wayj but afterwards, thofe 

 planted in beds throve exceedingly, and yielded a mofl plentiful crop, 

 whilft the others were fcarce worth the digging. 



I As 



