AMERICAN IKSTITUTE. 247 



powers in fayor of agriculture and domestic manufactures to pro- 

 mote the public prosperity. 



[London Farmers Magazine. July, 1856. 



TOLL'S HUSBANDRY. 



William Cobbett, of England, rendered good service to the cause 

 of agriculture. Among other things he appreciated the system of 

 good old Jethro Tull. 



In 1822, in his Weekly Register, he says: "I mean to pub- 

 lish TulFs book by subscription, as I can get enough to do it 

 with. Even since the publication of my year's residence in 

 America, I have been receiving applications to republish TulL 

 These applications are more pressing now than ever, seeing that 

 there are at this moment, in several parts of England, to my 

 knowledge, the finest crops of Swedish turnips — standing in rows, 

 at Tullian distances — that ever, I believe, stood upon the face of 

 the earth, I bought an old folio edition of Tull, in 1812, for 

 seren shillings, and such copies now cannot be had for thirty 

 shillings, I propose to re-publish the whole of Tull's book 

 except what relates to drills and other implements, for in this we 

 have far surpassed Tull, who being a lawyer too, (would to God 

 that lawyers were always as usefully employed,) was the first 

 ijiventor of a drill, which he made out of the hair el of an orgauj 

 which shous that even organs may be good for something. ' This 

 was the/?-5^ drill ever made. The agriculture of England had 

 been, up to that time, very nearly what the Romans had intro- 

 duced, and, as Tull clearly shows, all their erroneous notions had 

 been most faithfully handed down to us from father to son. 



Tull went abroad for health, and being in the south of France, 

 he observed that the vineyards were tilled in spring and summer 

 while the vines were producing their fruit, and that those vine- 

 yards had the best crops and finest fruit that were best and most 

 deeply tilled. On his return to England, he applied this sort of 

 cultivation to corn, (wheat, etc.,) turnips, San-foin and Lucerne. 



Tull lays down causes why the thing is, not rules ! He begins 

 with the roots, then goes to the leaves and then to the food of 

 the plants, and the manner it is conveyed into the body of the 

 plants, he does this in a plain way, not that lofty and law jargon 

 of the present day ! His book ought to be read by everj^ young 

 man and by every young woman too. 



When I went last to America, there never had been a field of 

 Swedish turnips in that country. Now there are thousands upon 

 thousands of such fields all cultivated in the Tullian manner. 



