122 Of Wheat. Chap. IX. 



All thefe Advantages will be loft by thofe Drillers, 

 who do not overcome the unreafonnble Prejudices of 

 the unexperienced, concerning the Width of Inter- 

 vals. 



In wide Intervals, we can raife a good Crop with 

 lefs Labour, Ids Seed, no Dung, no Fallow, but not 

 without a competent Quantity of Earth, which is the 

 leaft expenfive of any thing given to Corn - 9 the Earth 

 of a whole good Acre being but about the Tenth 

 Part of the common Expence ; and of indifferent 

 Land, a Twentieth ; and luch I count that of Five 

 Shillings and Six-pence per Acre. 



The Crop enjoys all the Earth-, for betwixt the laft 

 Hoeing, and the Harveft, there remains nothing but 

 Space empty of Mould in the Middle of the Intervals. 



'Tis an Objection, that great Part of thofe wide 

 Intervals muft be loll (u), becaufe the Wheat-roots do 



not 



greater Bulk, or different Constitution, exhauft more than others, 

 refpect. ought to be had to the Degree of Richnefs of the Soil, that 

 is to produce each Species ; The Sowing and the Hoeing Huf- 

 bandry differ io much both in Pulveratian and Exhauftion, that 

 no good Argument can be drawn from the former againft the 

 latter : But tho' a too great Number of Plants be, upon many- 

 Accounts, very injurious to the Crop, yet 'tis beft to have a com- 

 petent Number; which yet needs not be fo exact, but that we 

 may expect a great Crop from Twenty, Forty, or Fifty Plants in 

 a Yard of the treble Row, if well managed. 



(») They do reach through all the Mould (as fhall be 

 proved by-and-by); and yet may leave fufficient Pafture behind; 

 becaufe it is impofhble for them to come into Contact with all the 

 Mould in One Year; no more than when Ten Horfes are put inco 

 an Hundred Acres of good Pafture, their Mouths come into Con- 

 tact with all the Grafs to eat it in one Summer, though they will 

 go all over it, as the Vine-roots go all over the Soil of a Vine- 

 yard without exhaufting it all; becaufe thofe Roots feed only fuch 

 a bare competent Quantity of Plants, which do not overitock 

 their Pafture. 



The Superficies of the fibrous Roots of a proper Number of 

 Wheat- plants bear a very fin all Proportion to the Superficies of 

 the fine Parts of the pulverized Earth they feed on in thefe Inter- 

 vals ; for one cubical Foot of this Earth may, as is fliewn in 



p. 29. 



