38 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



its reception by ploughing. It has been held that 

 this important preliminary of pulverizing the soil can 

 hardly be carried to excess, the expense attending it 

 forming almost the only limit to its prosecution. 

 Cato the censor, who, in addition to his accomplish- 

 ments as a warrior and a statesman, showed an in- 

 timate acquaintance with rural economy, has recorded 

 his opinion on the necessity of thoroughly turning 

 up the soil. In his treatise, ( De re ruslica,' he has 

 laid it down as the first rule in husbandry to plough 

 well, and the second rule to plough.* 



Two distinct practices are followed in committing 

 the seed to the earth. The most ancient and most 

 commonly used of these is that of scattering the seed 

 from the hand of the sower over the whole surface ; 

 and this is characteristically called sowing broad-cast. 

 The other method, which is comparatively of modern 

 introduction, is that of depositing the seed in holes 

 formed in straight furrows, and at regular intervals, 

 which is called drilling, or dibbling ; while the pro- 

 cesses which accompany it, and which are impracti- 

 cable with the broad-cast method, are distingufshed 

 as the horse-hoeing or drill system of husbandry. 



Lord Bacon says, that, in his time (the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century), attempts had been made 

 to plant wheat, but that the plan was abandoned, 

 although undoubtedly advantageous, as involving 

 too much labour. | In 1669, Evelyn furnished to 

 the Royal Society a description of a sowing ma- 

 chine invented by Locatelli, an Italian, who had ob- 

 tained a patent for its use in Spain, having proved its 

 utility by public experiment. J The drill plough was, 

 however, not used in England, and was, perhaps, quite 

 unknown to a body of men who are proverbially 



* Cap. Ixi. t Sylva Sylvarum. 



$ See Beckmann's History of Inventions, vol. IT, p. 45, 

 ed. 1817. 



