iv] JETHRO TULL AND CULTIVATION 55 



times with the harrows, until the horses have trodden 

 it almost as hard as a highway." The young plants 

 thus had considerable difficulty in getting through, 

 and later on in the season they were terribly ham- 

 pered by the excessive growth of weeds which could 

 never be got rid of by the old methods. 



These defects were only slowly remedied, but the 

 man who probably did more than anyone else in this 

 direction was Jethro Tull. Travelling in the South of 

 France and in Italy in the early years of the eighteenth 

 century, he observed how carefully the vineyards were 

 cultivated. On his return home he adopted similar 

 methods on his farm at Shalbourne, on the borders of 

 Berkshire and Wiltshire, adapting and inventing the 

 necessary implements. Some farmers, indeed, had 

 already begun to get a fine tilth : he tells us of 

 "Great quantities of very light land (in Gloucester- 

 shire) which when kept in the sat erit 1 husbandry were 

 let for half a crown an acre, but being now brought 

 into the pulverising method, are let for ten shillings 

 an acre. But there is a misfortune in many parishes, 

 that the custom does not permit any one to pulverise 

 his light lands by tillage, until an enclosure be made 

 of them." 



Tull insisted on three points: (1) that the soil 

 must be thoroughly pulverised before the seed is 

 sown, (2) cultivation must continue after the seed is 



1 Toll's name for the old style. 



