300 Mr. William Pitt on the Production and 



degrees into a less proportion, the increased produce would go a great way towards 

 meeting the increased demand; the way to introduce this must principally be, by 

 the example of persons of influence and property, whose attempts in this way, if 

 conducted with judgment, would be certain of success, and whose success would 

 soon be imitated by others. I think one may venture to foretell, that if this or some 

 other similar system be not voluntarily adopted, necessity will by degrees compel 

 its adoption. I suppose we are in this part of our agriculture, much behind the 

 ancient Egyptians, or the modern Chinese, whose population would not, and does 

 not, admit of a large portion of their fertile land being artificially rendered unpro- 

 ductive ; that the system is faulty and unnecessary, is proved by our own modern 

 gardeners, who have no fallow ground, and whose land is yet by far the most pro- 

 ductive this country affords. 



Wheat cm strong land in succession. — A system for this purpose has been for 

 several years adopted, and successfully practised, by a very intelligent and respect- 

 able country gentleman of Shropshire, John Cotes, Esq. who has served his coun- 

 try in several successive parliaments; he has grown annually to the extent of sixty 

 acres, and his crops have been constantly above average. About three or four 

 years ago, Mr. Cotes personally shewed me his culture, which he declared his in- 

 tention to persevere in, his average crops having been thirty bushels per acre. Mr. 

 Cotes's land is of a pretty good staple, but I think not at all better than large tracts 

 of the common field land of the kingdom, where fallowing is constantly practised. 

 I named to him the horse-hoeing system of TuU, which he declared himself unac- 

 quainted with, and that his system originated in his own ideas. 



The system of Tull very probably failed by the too great distance of the rows, 

 and by applying it to light land, which, Mr. Cotes admits, is better managed in the 

 turnip husbandry. 



Mr. Cotes's system totally rejects fallow; even upon the breaking up of grass 

 land, he would first take a broadcast crop, and after harvest pulverize the soil and 

 draw it into two-furrow ridges, about eighteen inches asunder; the seed is then 

 sown down the hollows, either by hand, which Mr. Cotes has nAt found tedious, 

 or by a drill machine, moved by a roller and drawn by a horse going along one of 

 the hollows ; the seed is then covered by two slight furrows from either side the 

 hollow, where the rov/ is sown, and in spring horse hoed, by breaking down the 

 remaining part of the ridge between the rows of corn ; the remainder of the clean- 



