HISTORICAL NOTICES OF AGRICULTURE. 13 



The merit of introducing clover into use as a grass 

 in England belongs to Walter Bligh, who published 

 in 1652 his " Improver Improved," a work full of 

 valuable facts, and containing many things worthy 

 of notice at the present day. Soon after this, Wes- 

 ton gave agriculture the most decided impulse it had 

 re(;eived for a long time, by publishing an account of 

 th(^ field-cultivation of the turnip in Flanders, where 

 this root had received great attention for some years. 

 Valuable as the culture has proved to England, near- 

 ly doubUng her agricultural products within the last 

 sixty years, turnips were obliged to encounter the 

 most absurd prejudices, and it was a long time be- 

 fore they succeeded in becoming an object of gener- 

 al favour. To the introduction of clover and turnips, 

 more, perhaps, than to any other single cause, may 

 be attributed the rapid advancement of agriculture 

 in that kingdom. Their use renders a rotation of 

 crops imperative, and this both science and experi- 

 ence unite in asserting to be the only true mode of 

 making cultivation profitable, and, at the same time, 

 constantly improve the soil. 



Jelhro TuU was the first English farmer who 

 brought himself into any considerable notice by im- 

 provements on the preceding systems of cultivating 

 plants by a different treatment of the soil. His sys- 

 tem was based on the facts he had observed in Lom- 

 bardy, on the rich alluvial of the Po, where the vege- 

 tables are planted in rows, with wide intervals, and 

 the earth frequently stirred between them. Gar- 

 deners, too, adopt a similar course, and Tull con- 

 ceived the idea that the same course could be ad- 

 vantageously introduced into the culture of field- 

 crops ; hence the origin of what is called the Drill 

 Husbandly, and the practice of horse-hoeing. So 

 far the system of Tull was admirable; but he had 

 also imbibed a notion that the earths, finely attenua- 

 ted or pulverized, were the food of plants, and that 

 manures were unnecessary where; the system of 



