Note 55 — CHAP. VI. Of Hoeing.

Mr. Houghton calculates, that a Crop of Wheat of Thirty Quarters to an Acre, each Ear has two Inches and a Half of Surface; by which ’tis evident, that there would be Room for many such prodigious Crops to stand on.

And a Quick-hedge, standing between two Arable Grounds, one Foot broad at Bottom, and Eighteen Feet in Length, will, at fourteen Years Growth, produce more of the same Sort of Wood, than eighteen Feet square of a Coppice will produce in the same Time, the Soil of both being of equal Goodness.

This seems to be the same Case with our ho’d Rows; the Coppice, if it were to be cut in the first Years, would yield perhaps ten Times as much Wood, as the Hedge; but many of the Shoots of the Coppice constantly die every Year, for Want of sufficient Nourishment, until the Coppice is fit to be cut; and then its Product is much less than that of the Hedge, whose Pasture has not been over-stock’d to such a Degree as the Coppice-Pasture has been; and therefore brings its Crop of Wood to greater Perfection than the Coppice-Wood, which has Eighteen Times the Surface of Ground to stand on; The Hedge has the Benefit of Hoeing, as oft as the Land on either Side of it is till’d; but the Coppice, like the sown Corn, wants that Benefit.