AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



The Britons were forbidden to plough with 

 any other animal than the ox; and they attached 

 any requisite number of oxen to the plough. 

 The Normans had been accustomed, in their 

 light soils, to employ only one, or at most two. 

 (Leges Wullicx, 288; Montfaucon's Mnnurnens\ 

 de Monarchic Fran yds L Planche, 47; Giraldus 

 Cambrensis,c.. 17.) 



The gigantic- and universal impulse that 

 seemed simultaneously to affect the human 

 mind in the sixteenth century, tended to the 

 improvement of sciences which could not be 

 benefitted without agriculture sharing in the 

 good. Metallurgy and its subservient arts, and 

 applied mathematics, were thus assistant to 

 improving the plough. It received the first 

 improvement among the Dutch and Flemings 

 in the sixteenth century ; and still more so in 

 Scotland in the following one. 



The common wooden swing-plough is the 

 state to which it was brought in the last-named 

 country, in the eighteenth century, and still is 

 known in many countries, as the improved 

 Scotch plough. The first author of the improved 

 form is differently stated. A man of the name 

 of Lummis has by one writer this credit as- 

 signed to him, though he learned the improve- 

 ment in Holland. He obtained a patent for his 

 form of construction ; but another ploughman, 

 named Pashley, living at Kirkleathem, pirated 

 his invention. The son of Lummis established 

 a manufactory at Rotherham in Yorkshire, 

 whence it is sometimes called the Rotherham 



S' ough ; but in Scotland it was known as the 

 utch or Patent Plough. On the other hand, 

 the Rotherham plough is said to have been 

 made at that town in. 1720, or ten years before 

 Lummis's improvements. The grandmother 

 of the Earl Buchan, Lady Stewart of Goodtrees, 

 near Edinburgh, is also named as an improver. 

 She invented the Rutherglen plough, formerly 

 much employed in the west of Scotland. Mr. 

 Small, in 1784, and Mr. Bailey, in 1795, pub- 

 lished upon the proper mathematical form of 

 this implement. In the fourth volume of the 

 Transactions of the Highland Society, and in the 

 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for February, 

 1829, there are also two valuable Essays upon 

 the same subject. In 1811 this plough came 

 very generally to be made of cast iron. (Amos' s 

 Essay on Agricultural Machines, Survey of W. 

 Riding? of Yorkshire, &c.) 



Wheel ploughs have been commensurately 

 improved. The objects to be attended to in the 

 formation of a plough, and that is the best 

 which attains to them most effectually, are, 

 first, that it shall enter and pass through the 

 soil with the least possible resistance ; se- 

 condly, that the furrow-slice be accurately 

 turned over; and, thirdly, that the moving 

 power or team shall be placed in the most 

 beneficial line of draught. 



Scarifiers and horse hoes are implements 

 which were unknown till within about a cen- 

 tury ago. Hoeing by manual labour had, in 

 <iwy early ages, been partially practised ; for 

 tfe earliest writers, we have seen, recom- 

 mended particular attention to the cutting 

 down and destroying of weeds. But to Jethro 

 Tull, is indisputably due the honour of having 

 first demonstrated the importance of frequent 

 42 



hoeing, not merely to extirpate weeds, but for 

 the purpose of pulverizing the soil, by which 

 process the gases and moisture of the atmos- 

 phere are enabled more freely to penetrate to 

 the roots of the crop. The works of Tull ap- 

 peared between the years 1731 and 1739. 



Drills. We noticed, when considering the 

 Roman agriculture, that the Romans endea- 

 voured to attain the advantages incident to 

 row-culture by ploughing in their seeds. A 

 rude machine is described in the Transactions 

 of the Board of Agriculture, as having been 

 used immemorialiy in India for sowing in 

 rows. The first drill for this purpose intro- 

 duced into Europe seems to have been the in- 

 vention of a German, who made it known to 

 the Spanish court in 1647. (Harte's Essays on 

 Husbandry.} It was first brought much into 

 notice in this country by Tull, in 1731 ; but the 

 practice did not come into any thing like ge- 

 neral adoption till the commencement of the 

 present century. There are now several im- 

 proved machines adapted to the sowing of 

 corn, beans, and turnips. See DRILLS. 



Draining, as we have seen, was attended to 

 by the Romans, and it was unquestionably 

 practised in Britain during the middle ages ; 

 for where lands were too retentive of moisture, 

 or abounded in springs, the obvious remedy 

 was to remove it by drains. This, however, 

 and far simpler operations, are seldom per- 

 formed in the most correct mode without a 

 knowledge of the sciences connected with 

 their success. Draining was never correctly 

 understood till the scientific observations of 

 Dr. Anderson, and the practical details of Mr. 

 Elkington, about the year 1761, placed it upon 

 a more enlightened and correct system. The 

 important benefits that have arisen from the 

 adoption of this system are very extensive ; 

 and the acknowledgment of 1000/., voted to 

 Mr. Elkington, was a just testimony that the 

 landed interest appreciated the boon, and that 

 the benefiter of this country is duly estimated 

 by its legislature. 



There are numerous kinds of drain ploughs. 

 The mnle plough was invented by a Mr. Adam 

 Scott, and improved by a Mr. Lumley of 

 Gloucestershire during the present century. 



The past and the present century have also 

 given birth to machines totally unknown in 

 previous ages ; of these are rollers, machines 

 for haymaking, reaping, threshing, and dress- 

 ing; and if to these be added the immense im- 

 provement that has taken place in the term 

 and quality of all other agricultural imple- 

 ments, the saving of labour, and the power to 

 pursue the necessary operations neatly and 

 well, will be found to be incalculably pro- 

 moted. 



Crops. It is probable that wheat was not 

 cultivated by the early Britons; for the cli- 

 mate, owing to the immense preponderance of 

 woods and undrained soil, was so severe and 

 wet, that in winter they could attempt no agri- 

 cultural employments ; and even when Bede 

 wrote, early in the eighth century, the Anglo- 

 Saxons sowed their wheat in spring. (liede's 

 | Works, p. 244.) The quantity cultivated in the 

 ' reign of Henry III. does not appear to have 

 ; exceeded the quantity necessary for the year's 



