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⚫ of defire and adoration of all the Beasts. They preferred it to every thing, even to their Sage. There were few amongst ⚫ them that were not more taken up with the care of amaffing a great number of them, than with that of seeking the paths that led to the Mountain. Yet none of them durft confefs this way of thinking, from a very strange sort of shame, fince it turned only upon the confeffion, and not upon the fentiment. This inward contradiction, which seems the cry of reason, is a cruel fatire on the heart that experiences it, when all it feeks is to conceal what it ought rather to annihilate.'

The Writer very strongly ridicules our late party diffentions, makes a jeft of the convention figned laft year by the Hanove-. rians, and of our unfortunate expedition to Rochefort. Upon the whole, this work is in general sprightly and amufing. It bears ftrong marks of a generous freedom of thought, and difplays a fertile invention, with an elegant fancy. Nevertheless, we muft obferve, that the reflections are fometimes fpun out to fuch a tedious length, as deftroys their fpirit: and that the Writer's partiality to his native country, now and then draws him from that ftrict adherence to truth and justice, which even a Writer of Fable fhould never depart from.

Before we conclude, we must afk pardon for having spoken of our Author in the mafculine gender; for we have the pleasure to be informed, that a Lady claims the honour of this production. RAd

Conclufion of the Compleat Body of Husbandry. See our last Month's Review.

UR Authors feem not to approve of the method of making Hay, as practifed, they fay, in feveral parts of the kingdom; that is, by turning it two or three times in the fwarth, and never putting it into cocks till fuppofed to be nearly made. It is then put up in large cocks, and let stand a week or ten days to fweat, and then taken home.' This way, it is confeffed, we have not seen, so can fay the lefs to it; but, however bad it may be, we cannot think that which our Authors have fubftituted for it, mends the matter. They advife, the grafs to lie in fwarth two days and a half, before it is touched. But why the half day, Gentlemen? And, indeed, why the two days? Is it not great pity, that a whimsical hypothefis fhould be the cause of your hay lofing two days and a half of fine weather (in which it might have been made and houfed) and lying, perhaps, till a week's rainy weather may put you to double expence, and poffibly poil your crop into the bargain? Had you not better make bay while the fun shines?

We

We imagine the curiofity of our Readers will be fatisfied with this fpecimen of our Authors judgment in hay-making; so shall omit the reft of their curious scheme, and come to their cultivation of artificial grafles.

The feveral forts of graffes called artificial, are thefe,-clover, faintfoine, lucerne, hop-trefoil, rye-grafs, and fpurry. The thirteenth chapter acquaints us with the vaft profit attending them, and of their great advantage to the ground; and that they will follow corn when it has quite exhaufted the land.' Because corn rooting very flightly, can exhaust only the fuperfi⚫cial part of the foil; fo that those which go deeper find nourishment, and at the fame time fallow (37) and improve the upper part, which will be wanted for corn again.' They pene⚫trate deep for their nourishment;' and though they require a great deal of it, yet they take it from fuch part of the ground as is not called upon for culture (38).'

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C Every thing that enriches the land, acts upon one of these two principles, as manure, or as fallow. The manures give a fertility from themfelves. The fallow leaves the ground open to receive it from the air; but it will even get it any where, fo it have reft (39).—In gardening, when much manure is not ufed, the ground is to be trenched once in two or three years, to make it fruitful.' This buries that part which nourished the

(37) This is the first time we have heard of artificial graffes fallowing the ground; we know they are fometimes fown on land when it fhould lie fallow, which prevents it, often to the prejudice of the ground.

(38) Our Authors imagine, that becaufe thofe graffes are mostly tap rooted plants, (i. e. fuch whole roots run perpendicularly into the ground) they take all their nourishment below the common staple where the corn roots. But thofe fort of plants have horizontal, or spreading roots, that iffue from the main tap-root, more efpecially near the turface of the ground, where there commonly is a thick range of them, long and ftrong all round the main root; and can it be faid, that these do not exhauit that furface? Thele Gentlemen have elsewhere acknowleged, that there are fuch roots, and that they do exhauft the upper flaple of the ground, though now they feem to forget it.

(39) If fallowing only leaves the ground open to receive fertility from the air, and if by only having reft, it will become fertile of itfelf, what occafion is there for fallowing? The expence of that might furely be fpared. But how can the ground be faid to have reft while it is crouded with plants, whofe ftrong and numerous roots fread themfelves through the whole depth of the staple?

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plants, it is faid, and raises a parcel of new mould (40). In the fame manner, we are told, these graffes act, In that cafe the fuperficial earth wherein the former crop grew, is thrown un⚫der the new furface, where it gathers fresh ftrength (41), and ⚫ will be fit to nourish crops again. In this cafe of the graffes, • that under part of the foil, instead of being thrown up, is exhaufted by plants, whofe roots go down to it; and the upper part lies at reft, or at leaft with very little demand of nourishment from it (42), and is all the time fheltered by the spreading branches of the crop, and enriched by the dews and rains;

• &c.

(40) And what can this new mould be good for, unlefs in fome peculiar foils, without great plenty of manure to mix with, and to meliorate it? There may, perhaps, be fome fort of neceffity for trenching a garden, in order to have a foil deep enough to receive the many tap rooted plants a gardener fows; feveral of which can turn to little or no account any other ways than by their roots; and as most gardens are fituated in deep foils, and generally large quanties of dung laid on them, trenching may anfwer very well: but we believe whoever thould make this a rule, by way of analogy, for the field, would find himself much mistaken. For there is rarely depth of earth, or quantity of dung, fufficient for the purpose; or if there were, it would be a needlefs expence, fince the plants ufually cultivated by the husbandman require no fuch depth. This obfervation, though fomewhat foreign to the fubject, we hope our Readers will excufe, when we affure them, we have known this method of trenching brought as an example to the farmer, to urge him to plow his ground beyond its natural ftaple; for the fake, as it was faid, of the fresh or virgin-earth: and this chimerical notion has been adopted by many fpeculatifts in agriculture. But that the top, and not the bottom of the ground, is generally the most fertile, is fufficiently evinced by Mr. Tull, Horfe-hoing Hufbandry, fol. p. 60, &c. and alfo by our Authors, in many parts of the work before us, though in others they as ftrangely forget themselves, and call the bottom richeit: as we fhall fee again presently.

(41) Our Authors have, all along, fuppofed, that the more the earth, or mould, was plowed and turned up, and expofed to the air, the richer it would grow. This they faid above, in these words, the fallow leaves the ground open to receive fertility from the air; and this they have laid often before, and tedioufly infifted on it, with much argument, and even paffion; calling upon the legislature to enforce the method of horse hoing, (which is chiefly founded on this principle) by rewards and penalties, as they have done broad wheels. But now, they calmly tell us, that gardeners trench their ground to bury the earth which was exhausted by vegetation, under the new furface, where it lies and gathers fresh frength, and will be fit to nourish crops again.

(42) Here it is allowed, that there may be a little demand from the upper part of the ground towards nourishing thefe tap-rooted graffes." And that this is not a little demand only, is, we prefume, evident from

&c. (43).-This is the fyftem of improvement by artificial graffes.--And a very fine fyftem truly!

In the fourteenth chapter it is faid, that clover, in its original, is a native of our own country (44). And that the richest • foils, except fuch as are new broke up, fucceed beft with it.' Land may be too rich for corn, but not for clover (45). On poor ground it will not come to any thing. Whatever land

be defigned for clover, must be brought into perfect good tillage; and for this reason it very well follows corn, as in that

from this, that rye-grafs, when fown amongst clover, commonly kills a great deal of it, after the first year: though then the clover-roots are got ftronger, and run deeper into the ground. Now rye-grafs is a horizontal rooted plant, and roots fhallow in the ground, (not fo deep as fome forts of grain), how then could it kill the clover, if that depended for its nourishment, only on the lower ftratum of the ground? Their roots could never intermix, and therefore could not injure one. another. They might both live, one would think, like two families in the fame house, without interfering, one in the upper, the other in. the lower floor.

(43) That the ground would be fheltered by the crop is very true, not only from the fun, but the other influences of the air, especially the dews, which would lodge on these spreading branches, our Authors talk of, and from thence be exhaled by the heat of the day, and thus be of little or no benefit to the ground.

(44) Then how came it to be unknown to our forefathers? We find no mention of it in fome of our oldest books of husbandry. Even fo late as about 1650 it was in a state of probation, and fown only by way of trial, as may be seen in Hartlib's Legacy.

The reafon our Authors give for this their opinion, is, that the common red honey-fuckle, (and they might have faid white honeyfuckle too, for that is as like clover as the other, except in the colour of the flower) is clover in a wild ftate.' But if this analogy might hold good in other species of vegetables, we should infer from thence, that the chich, or, vulgarly, thetch, is only the wild thetch we often fee among corn and grafs, in a tame state; and yet the Body of Hufbandry affures us, it is a native of Italy.

This brings to mind a paffage in the fecond chapter of the first book of the faid work; where the wild parfnip is faid to be the garden parfnip not cultivated. But we are of opinion, that both this and the wild honey-fuckle grafs, wild thetches, wild trefoile, wild oats, &c. are of a different species, though a fort of imitation or likenefs of the true forts; and we are fatisfied no cultivation, or art, can ever improve them fo as to become the fame with the others.

(45) This may be true. But it is faid, it will not come to any thing on poor ground. Though we have feen good crops of it on poorish gravels, when well manured with coal-afhes; i. e. about fixty bushels to

an acre.

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cafe it comes upon a land which has been well wrought; and • with respect to the nourishment it requires, is not exhausted. This we have explained already.' (46)

The fame manures, we are told, that are used for corn, are the proper, and the only manures for clover (47). It is faid to be commonly fown with barley; but in a wet fummer it grows fo big, as often to damage that, and in a dry one, to fail. To prevent which, it is advifed, to drill the clover amongst the barley, with an hand-drill, after the barley has got about three inches high.' (48)

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Clover, though ufually fown in the spring with barley or oats, will thrive with wheat, or winter-rye, if fown with them in the beginning of October.' This, they fay, brings the clover on fo forward, that a dry fummer does not hurt it;—it has time to ftrengthen itself in the ground before the drought comes; -nor will it hurt the wheat by being fo forward as fome may fancy; because, as we have fhewn already, the wheat rooting fuperficially, and the clover deep, they do not interfere (49).

When wheat-land is to be fown with rye-grafs and clover, in order to lay down with grafs, the best way, in our Authors opinion, is to fow the rye-grafs with the wheat in October (50),

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(46) Yes, by faying, p. 428. that the artificial graffes will follow corn, when it has quite exhausted the land, very successfully;' though now, it feems, the land must be in perfect good tillage, and not exhausted ! · (47) So then, that juftly celebrated manure for clover, coal ashes, is excluded.

(48) This advice is from Mr. Tull, but not acknowleged. As to the method, our opinion is, that it will be very tedious and expenfive to drill twenty, thirty, or forty acres of clover, which many farmers fow: and as the rows of clover cannot be hoed, it will be the worfe for being drilled, for the reasons given in our notes on the fifth part (of Drill and Horfe-hoing Hufbandry) of the fixth book, fee Review for last month, page 425. feq.

(49) This reafon, were it good for any thing, might also prevent the clover from hurting the barley, for that roots fuperficially too, like wheat, or rather more fo; but yet we have known great damage done to barley by it; and fo, it feems, have our Authors; and we doubt the wheat would not fare much better from clover fown fo early, fhould this furvive the winter; which, indeed, we greatly queftion. A better way, to our apprehenfion, would be, to fow the clover by hand among the wheat, in April, or even in March, if the ground be dry, and harrow, or roll it in, or both.

(50) Rye-grafs is a forwarder plant than clover, and is fit to mow before that, and when they are fown together, and mowed, the for

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