Jetkro Tall: his Life, Times, and Teachinj. 17 
to farm-servants, ' Go, do this thing or that,' or, Come, let us 
go and do it ' " — his version of the proverbial saying : 
Tie who by the plougli would tlivive 
Must eilLer hold himself or drive. 
The practical application of this theory, bodily exertion and 
exposure, together with the continuous attention necessary to his 
operations, brought on a serious chest complaint, v^hich rendered 
it absolutely necessary for him to seek a milder climate in France 
and Italy : the sunny South, where, in the words of his familiar 
Virgil, " He might quaft'the pendant vintage as it grows." But, 
before setting out, note-book in hand, he decided to sell part of hia 
Oxfordshire estate, and to establish his family at a farm of his own 
in Berkshire named " Prosperous," and situated in the parish of 
Shalbourne. The reasons for selliug land were probably other 
than personal, because Tull says in one reply to his critics, " I 
have never spent an estate in any manner." Before going 
abroad he must have been some little time at " Prosperous." 
His daughter Mary was baptised at Shalbourne in 1710, and "I 
travelled," he says, " in April, 1711, being above ten years after 
making and using my drill. ... I was obliged to travel for 
saving my life." 
Tull tells us : — " I took the first hints of my horse-hoeing 
culture from the ploughed vineyards near Frontignan, and Setts, 
in Languedoc, a southern province of France, on the Mediter- 
ranean. After my return to England, I improved these hints 
by observing that the same sort of vineyard tillage bestowed on 
potatoes and turnips had the same effect on them as it had on 
these vines. So also in regard to corn. I was thus confirmed in 
the principles which, by arguing from effects to their causes, I 
had formed to myself, and my practice ever since has been a 
further confirmation of the truth of the same principles." He 
observes further, pursuing his Virgilian studies on the spot and 
with great zest, " The ancients were perfect masters of the vine- 
husbandry, which seems to have engrossed their rural studies, 
that it did not allow them so much reflection, as to apply the 
use of those methods to the increase of bread, which they had 
discovered to be most beneficial for the increase of wine." Tull 
tells us that he travelled through Italy, and shrewdly observed 
that the patrimony of St. Peter lost when compared with the 
hereditary estates adjoining. "I went," he says, " the whole 
length of Italy by land, traversing the kingdom of Naples almost 
all over, and made a considerable stay in many places thereof." As 
compared with that of other countries, he was greatly struck by 
the extraordinary cost of English labour, 
VOL, 11. T. S.— 5 Q 
