WHEAT. 39 



slow all over the world to adopt any improvement, 

 till public attention was awakened to it, in the 

 early part of the last century, by the celebrated 

 Jethro Tull, who, after practically following for some 

 years his own improved plan of husbandry, and 

 thereby proving its advantages, published a particu- 

 lar account of his process in the year 1733. This 

 work, which he entitled ' An Essay on Horse- 

 hoeing Husbandry,' became highly popular, com- 

 pelling the attention of English agriculturists to the 

 subject, and engaging no less the consideration of 

 scientific foreigners. The system of Mr Tull con- 

 sisted in discarding the old method of scattering 

 seed upon the land broad-cast, and in substituting 

 a mode of sowing the grain in straight rows or 

 furrows by means of an implement more perfect 

 than Locatelli's machine, which delivered the seed 

 at proper intervals, and in the exact quantity that 

 was found most beneficial. Spaces of fifty inches 

 breadth were left between the furrows, so that 

 the land could be ploughed or horse-hoed in these 

 intervals at various periods during the growth of the 

 crop, the object of these hoeings being to bring fresh 

 portions of the soil into contact with the fibrous roots 

 of the plants, and thus to render every part in turn 

 available for their nutrition. One material advan- 

 tage that results from the new method of husbandry 

 is the saving which it occasions in seed-corn, and 

 which is said to amount to five-eighths of the quan- 

 tity usually expended in the old method. The com- 

 parative merits of the two plans have for so long a 

 time been submitted to the surest of all tests, that 

 of experience, and have been so well examined by 

 competent persons, who have given the result of 

 their inquiries to the world, that it cannot be neces- 

 sary to do more in this place than refer the reader to 

 those authors for farther information. 



