Volume 2

A new and complete system of practical husbandry; containing all that experience has proved to be most useful in farming. Either in the old or new method; with a comparative view of both; and whatever is beneficial to the husbandman, or conducive to the ornament and improvement of the country gentleman's estate / By John Mills.

  • Mills, John, -1784?
Date:
1762-1765
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new and complete system of practical husbandry; containing all that experience has proved to be most useful in farming. Either in the old or new method; with a comparative view of both; and whatever is beneficial to the husbandman, or conducive to the ornament and improvement of the country gentleman's estate / By John Mills. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/482 (page 11)
    Land is too ftrong when its particles lie fo clofe together, that the roots of plants cannot extend between them, without great difficulty, in queft of their neceffary food, for want -of which they will remain poor and fickly/ But when the ground has been well loofened by repeated plow- ings, and its particles are fet at greater diftanoes from each other, thofe roots will be able to fpread freely on all fides, to pervade every minute chafm,, and CO collecb fuch quantities of food, as wili make the plants grow ftrotig and vigorous. The friendly influences of the atmofphere will then penetrate to them. What plainly proves the good effeds of loofening fuch foils, is, that their fertility is fometimes increafed by a mixture of fand, inftead of dung. Now fand does not afford any nutritive fubftance but only hinders the particles of the earth from re-uniting too clofelyd’ ‘‘ Plowing is equally beneficial to light lands, for the very contrary reafon •, though thefe do not require fo much of it as the other. There is no danger of their being exhaufled by any cx» pofurc to the fun ; but, on the contrary, they acquire an additional degree of fertility by the fliirring and grinding of their particles, and arc thereby the better fitted to receive the moifture of rains and dews, and the falutarv influences of the air and fun -, whilll: their inward pores are at the fame time better adapted to the proper exten- fion of the roots of plants, by their being lef- fened.” But, let the benefits ariling from dung be ever fo great, let the means of obtaining enough of it be ever fo eafy, and let even its defeats be correded as much as can be *, fill] it will not be the lefs true, that frequent plowing is of infinite lervicc to land.’* For