TULL, JETHRO. 



dener) which is produced by placing the ma- 

 nure in a chamber beneath the soil, so that the 

 roots of the plants neither mix with, nor does 

 the soil even touch the compost. The gases 

 of putrefaction, however, arise and mix with 

 the soil, and the most luxuriant effects are pro- 

 duced without any division of " the terrestrial 

 matter," which Tull imagined to be so essen- 

 tial to the explanation of the phenomenon. We 

 need not search in the works of Tull for any 

 attempts to use the drill for the application of 

 fertilizers, for all Tull's efforts were directed 

 to cultivate the earth without manure of any 

 kind. He admitted the necessity, of using it at 

 all only with extreme reluctance ; he told his 

 readers, 7 years before his death, that "the par- 

 ticular scheme of raising constant annual crops 

 of wheat without dung or fallow is as yet only 

 upon probation ; but, by six crops I have had 

 in that manner, I see nothing against their be- 

 ing continued. This, it is true, requires greater 

 care in their management than any other branch 

 of the husbandry; but he who can do this with- 

 out dung or fallow, may easily do it with one 

 or both of them ; and there may be such wet, 

 clayey land which the plough cannot well pul- 

 verize without help of the ferment or dung." 



Tull, in fact, let no opportunity escape him 

 to decry the ill effects of employing manure. 

 Modern gardeners would be astonished at his 

 zeal when he contends for its banishment from 

 the kitchen garden. " There is," he says (p. 

 18), " much more reason to prohibit the use of 

 dung in the kitchen garden, on account of the 

 ill taste it gives to esculent roots and plants, 

 especially such dung as is made in great towns. 

 It is a wonder how delicate palates can dis- 

 pense with eating their own and their beasts' 

 ordure, but a little more putrefied and evapo- 

 rated, together with all sorts of filth and nasti- 

 ness, a tincture of which those roots must un- 

 avoidably receive that grow amongst it. In- 

 deed, I do not admire, that learned palates, ac- 

 customed to the gout of silphium, garlic, and 

 mortified venison, equalling the stench and 

 rankness of this sort of city muck, should 

 relish and approve of plants that are fed and 

 fattened by its immediate contact. People 

 who are so vulgarly nice as to nauseate the 

 modish dainties, and whose squeamish sto- 

 machs even abhor to receive the food of nobles, 

 so little different from that wherewith they re- 

 gale their richest gardens, say, that even the 

 very water wherein a rich garden cabbage is 

 boiled stinks; but that the water wherein a 

 cabbage from a poor undunged field is boiled 

 has no manner of unpleasant savour; and that 

 a carrot bred in a dunghill has none of that 

 sweet relish which a field carrot affords. Dung 

 not only spoils the fine flavour of these our 

 eatables, but it spoils good liquor. The dunged , 

 vineyards in Languedoc produce nauseous j 

 wine ; from whence there is a proverb in that ; 

 country, that poor people's wine is best, be- I 

 cause they carry no dung to their vineyards." ' 

 Our author, however, had a better opinion of ' 

 vegetable manures than those of animals, for ! 

 he says, "Vegetable dun?, unless the vegetable I 

 be buried alive in the soil, makes a much less 

 ferment in it, and, consequently, divides it le>s 

 than animal dung docs. But the dung of vege- ; 



TULL, JETHRO. 



I tables is much more wholesome for the use of 

 edible roots and plants than that of animals." 



Jethro Tull, according to Chalmers, died at 

 his house at Prosperous, January 3, 1740. Of 

 his works and inventions of agricultural ma- 

 chinery I have already spoken. Five chapters 

 of his only work that I am acquainted with, 

 The Horse-hoe Husbandry, were published in 

 folio in 1731, the chief volume in 1733; and 

 in the samp year some additions were printed 

 which are not found in many of the copies of 

 that year, or even in that of 1751. Cobbett, 

 however, was careful to add it to an octavo edi- 

 tion which he printed in 1829. In this, he 

 omitted only the plates of the ploughs and 

 other agricultural implements; but he added 

 an introduction, in which he did little except 

 laud Tull, and vituperate those who had adopt- 

 ed Tull's plans, without acknowledging the 

 source of their obligation ; not remembering 

 that many a Tullian improvement has been 

 often made since our author's time, by plain, 

 practical farmers, who never even heard the 

 name of Tull mentioned. 



Tull, as I have before remarked, published 

 his "addenda" to his Husbandry in the same 

 year that the first edition appeared; in these he 

 takes more notice than was perhaps necessary 

 of certain attacks which had been made upon 

 his book, by the members of a certain " equi- 

 vocal society," amongst whom was the cele- 

 brated Stephen Switzer, the most talented 

 seedsman, gardener, and horticultural author 

 of his day. It appears, too, that a society of 

 gentlemen in Dublin had, without his leave, 

 reprinted for distribution his five " specimen 

 chapters," all of which annoying circum- 

 stances evidently irritated him; besides these 

 controversial notices, and certain corrections 

 of the errors made by the printer, Uie long ad- 

 denda do not contain any thing very valuable. 

 Time hr.s settled pretty well the respective 

 merits of the contending parties ; the fame of 

 Tull is steadily increasing, while the name and 

 works of even the classical, the elegant Swit- 

 zer, are much too little known amongst modern 

 cultivators. 



Twenty-four years after the death of Jethro 

 Tull, a paper appeared in the Gentleman's Ufa- 

 ', vol. xxxiv. p. 522, dated at Hungerforcf, 

 about 4 miles from the farm where he lived and 

 died, and signed with the initials D. Y., which 

 details almost all that is known of the life of 

 the great introducer of the drill system. It 

 was written by one of his neighbours, who had 

 known and associated with him, and valued 

 very properly his services in the cause of agri- 

 culture. He describes in that essay the sen- 

 sation produced by the unheard-of attempts of 

 Tull. He says, " Novelty always excites cari- 

 osity many gentlemen came from different 

 parts on the fame of this new method of farm- 

 ing, some of whom were persuaded by the 

 weight of Mr. Tull's arguments, to go hand in 

 hand with him in the course of his experi- 

 ments, while others, who thought themselves 

 more wise and more discerning, took every 

 occasion of ridiculing the practice, and of re- 

 presenting it as a fanciful project, that, after a 

 great expense, would end in nothing but the 

 ruin of the proprietor. In general, the whole 



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