June G.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
141 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
D D 
JUNE 6—12, 1850. 
Weather near London 
in 1849. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R.&S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
6 Th 
Landrail first heard. 
T. 66°—51°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
47 a. 3 
9 a. 8 
2 
7 
26 
1 
45 
157 
7 F 
Nightingale’s song ceases. 
T. 71°— 50°. 
N.W. 
Fine. 
47 
10 
2 
32 
27 
1 
35 
158 
8 S 
Honesuckle flowers. 
T. 66°—42°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
46 
11 
3 
0 
28 
1 
23 
159 
^ Sun 
2 Son. apt. Trinity. Dagger Moth appears. 
T. 65°—43°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
46 
12 
3 
35 
29 
1 
12 
160 
10 M 
Silver Moth appears. 
T. 6o°—42°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
45 
13 
sets. 
© 
1 
0 
l 6 i 
11 To 
St. Barnabas. Common Mallow flowers. 
T. 65°—37°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
45 
14 
9 a .21 
1 
0 
48 
162 
12 W 
Trin. T. ends. Redbreast’s second brood hatch. 
T. 57°—40°. 
N.W. 
Fine. 
45 
14 
10 
16 
2 
0 
36 
163 
On the 3rd of June, 1740, died Jethro Tull, the inventor and the 
unwearied advocate of drill-sowing and frequent hoeing—the greatest 
improvements which have been introduced into the modern practice of 
tillage. The saving of seed effected by this practice is no small con¬ 
sideration ; for let it be remembered, that millions of acres are annually 
sown to grow food for man and his assistant animals, and that by drilling 
more than one-third of the requisite seed is saved. But this is of trivial 
importance when compared with the facility that drilling affords for the 
destruction of weeds, and loosening the soil by the hoe. Every weed, 
living as it does upon the same food as the cultivated plants among which 
it grows, is really a robber depriving them of a certain portion of their 
nourishment, and rendering them less vigorous by depriving them of 
light and air proportionate to its own size. On the importance of loosen¬ 
ing the soil we need not further insist, for we have repeatedly explained 
that importance, and our coadjutors almost weekly advocate the bene¬ 
fits derivable from the practice. Before Tull’s time thick sowing broad¬ 
cast, and the scanty employment of the hoe, were the established mode; 
and when Tull adopted and published a work recommending a practice 
totally the reverse, though many came to see his “new system of hus¬ 
bandry,” yet they for the most part came to deride it, and his very 
labourers thwarted him in “his new-fangled ways.” Yet he wrestled 
firmly and undauntedly against all difficulties; and so nobly does he 
stand forth in every period of his life, that we must glance over its pro¬ 
minent passages, and hold them up to the cultivators of the soil, to cheer 
as well as to warn. Tull was educated for the legal profession, but acute 
disease drove him from a sedentary life, but not into idleness. During 
his travels in search of health he directed his attention to the agriculture 
of the countries through which he passed; and finding that they never 
manured their vineyards, he rashly concluded that all plants might be 
RANGE OF BAROMETER—RAIN IN INCHES. 
June 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847. 
1848. 
1849. 
/29.981 
30.038 
29.861 
29.834 
29.800 
30.084 
30.073 
29.869 
30.109 
129-923 
29.915 
29.789 
29.714 
29.575 
30.035 
30.046 
29-787 
30.090 
K. 
0.01 
— 
0.17 
0.02 
— 
— 
— 
— 
0.07 
r 29.956 
30.217 
29.896 
29.953 
29.864 
29.978 
30.108 
29.867 
30.137 
7 
\ 29.921 
30.163 
29.671 
29.862 
29.736 
29.883 
29-989 
29-788 
29.920 
It. 
0.02 
— 
0.23 
— 
0.25 
— 
0.02 
— 
— 
8 
B. 
129.974 
30.244 
29.407 
30.057 
30.200 
29.871 
29-835 
29.804 
29.990 
129.958 
30.204 
29.256 
30.001 
29.807 
29.806 
29.743 
29.766 
29.892 
R. 
— 
— 
0.10 
0.02 
— 
— 
0.06 
0.01 
— 
B. 
/ 29.947 
30.218 
29.642 
30.009 
30.365 
29-835 
29.865 
29-821 
29.918 
9 
1 29911 
30.103 
29.346 
29-983 
30.335 
29.772 
29.767 
29.623 
29.792 
R. 
_ 
— 
0.01 
0.01 
— 
— 
0.05 
0.27 
— 
10 
B. 
r 29 . 8 15 
30.100 
29.937 
30.110 
30.365 
29.995 
29.854 
29.627 
29.728 
t 29.669 
30.064 
29.749 
30.034 
30.269 
29.912 
29.676 
29.576 
29.668 
R. 
_ 
— 
0.34 
— 
— 
— 
0.02 
0.95 
— 
B. 
f 29 775 
30.180 
30.045 
3(1.186 
30.235 
30.195 
30.017 
29.811 
29.851 
11 
\ 29.687 
30.133 
30.040 
30.143 
30.151 
30.149 
29.960 
29.730 
29797 
R. 
_ 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
12 
B. 
f29.973 
30.263 
30.014 
30.166 
30.165 
30.222 
29.971 
29-784 
29.983 
\ 29.807 
30.244 
29.969 
30.080 
30.141 
30.126 
29-845 
29.515 
29-223 
R. 
0.01 
— 
0.20 
~ 
0.78 
similarly cultivated. On returning to England he occupied his own farm 
of Prosperous, at Shalborne, in Berkshire, and commenced that warfare, 
to win success against adverse circumstances, from which he only ceased 
when he rested on his death-bed. If any cultivator despairs over a thin 
and hungry soil, let him take courage, for Tull won crops from a soil of 
the same character; nor let him be subdued though sickness enervate 
him, for Tull was afflicted with agonizing diseases, yet was never cast 
down. The tradition of his neighbourhood is, that when confined to his 
couch by his incurable maladies, he carried on his experiments in boxes 
placed before his windows—sowing his seeds and trying his surface-stir- 
ring processes with all the enthusiasm of an inventor. If stupid, preju¬ 
diced, and perverse servants encumber and thwart the cultivator, this, 
too, was Tull’s fate ; and, like him, let the cultivator meet such obstinacy 
and ignorance with a firmness that will defy all opposition. He is still 
spoken of by the old labourers of the district as being a man whom it 
was impossible to oppose with eventual success; and the secret of his 
triumphs over peasant prejudice is told in this his own apothegm, “There 
is more than a rent odds in saying to the husbandry servants, Go and do 
this , or Come, let us do it .” Like many other inventors, he arrived at 
some conclusions not justified by his experiments ; and among these 
errors was the opinion that hoeing and pulverizing the soil might super¬ 
sede the use of manure altogether; but he lived to see his mistake, and, 
which is still more worthy, to acknowledge it. Our space warns us to 
conclude, and we will do so in the words of Mr. Cuthbert Johnson, who 
well appreciates his merits : “ Tull lies buried without even a stone to 
indicate where such a benefactor of agriculture reposes. His grave is 
even undetermined ; and if he died at Shalborne, there is no trace of his 
burial in its parish register. The tradition of the neighbourhood is, that 
he died and was buried in Italy. His deeds, his triumphs, were of the 
peaceful kind with which the world 
in general is little enamoured; but 
their results were momentous to his 
native land. His drill has saved to 
it, in seed alone, the food of mil¬ 
lions ; and his horse-hoe system, by 
which he attempted to cultivate 
without manure, taught the farmer 
that deep ploughing and pulve¬ 
rization of the soil render a much 
smaller application of fertilizers 
necessary.” That the biography 
of Tull is so scanty is to be re¬ 
gretted, and is the more surprising 
because his son, John Tull , was a 
writer, and a man of enterprise, 
to whom England was indebted 
for the first introduction of post- 
chaises, and the establishment of 
fish-markets in London. 
Meteorological Phenome¬ 
na. —During the last twenty-three 
years, at Chiswick, the average 
highest and lowest temperatures 
of the above seven days are 71 ° 
and 48.9°, respectively. The great¬ 
est heat occurred on the 7th in 
1846, when the thermometer rose 
to 90°. On 63 days rain fell, and 
98 days were fine. 
Insects. —At this season of the Glow-worm’s appearance, a few notes 
relative to its habits may be acceptable. It is the Lampyris noctilucu of 
entomologists. Both male and female are about half an inch in length, 
MALE. FEMALE. 
of a blackish colour, with legs of dirty red hue. The male is winged, 
but the female is quite destitute of the means of flying. Our drawing 
represents both the sexes. It is the female only which emits the brilliant 
phosphorescent light so famed in poetry as well as duller prose. This 
light proceeds from the under part of the abdomen, and from near its 
tip, and the insect has the power to vary its intensity. White says, of 
two specimens he kept, “these little creatures put out their lamps be¬ 
tween eleven and twelve, and shine no more for the rest of the night,” a 
fact not unknown to Shakespeare, the poet of nature, who says, 
“The glow-worm shews the matin to be near, 
And ’gins to pale its uneffectual fire.” 
The light they emit seems to arise from phosphorus secreted by them, for 
M. Latreille states that they sometimes explode if confined in hydrogen 
gas. It is usual to suppose that, like Hero, the glow-worm lights lier 
lamp as a guide for her lover; but a more probable, though less poetical, 
opinion is, that the light serves to discover to the insect its prey, for its 
eyes are beneath its head, as the light is also beneath its tail, and can by a 
slight bending be made to cast its illuminating power forwards. The 
glow-worm’s light is rarely bright after the middle of July, Both the 
perfect insect and its larvise seem to feed on snails and slugs. 
No. LXXXVIII., Vol. IV. 
