A new system of practical domestic economy.

Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new system of practical domestic economy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    388/508 (page 372)
    the enormous return of seventeen quarters of wheat to the acre ! The average produce, in the ordinary mode of cultivation, is not more than four quarters, so that the extra expense is more than repaid four- fold ; the expense of digging an acre of ordinary land, at nursery price, he states to be 33s.; and this, he adds, is an operation worth two plougliings ; and besides, by planting the wheat, there is a great saving in seed. In the usual mode of broad-cast, it requires two bushels to the acre; but in planting, one peck is sufficient. Mr. T. also states, that by spade-husbandry, he has made an acre of land pro- duce the almost incredible quantity of 800 bushels f and he gives it as his opinion, that the more general use of the spade would have the most beneficial effect, not only upon the agricultural labourers themselves, but on their employers also; for although the farmer might not be able to find labourers to cultivate large quantities of land in this way, he might at least cultivate sufficient to employ his quota of the labourers of his parish, and so at once exo- nerate the poorVrates, and be himself amply repaid. In further corroboration we can add, that in Scot- land, in the neighbourhood of Hamilton, an experi- ment was made to try the difference between the spade and the plough. A field was taken, which k was in beans the preceding year, and oats the year before: two ridges were dug and two ploughed alternately, and the whole was sown on the same day ; a part both on the ploughed and dug being drilled with the garden hoe. The whole was reaped the same day; and being thrashed out, the result was, that the dug sown broadcast was to the plough- ed sown broadcast as 55 to 42. The dug and drilled was as 20| to 12^, upon the ploughed and drilled.—The additional grain was not the only be-