Note 252 — CHAP. XVII. Of Differences between the Old and the New Husbandry.

Therefore, whenever a Soil receives more Supplies of fine Earth from the Atmosphere, than is exhausted by all the Plants that grow in the Soil, it becomes richer; but if the contrary, then it becomes poorer.

[253]On an undung’d low Six feet Ridge, we have Three Rows, Eight Inches asunder, all which being equal, during the Winter, but each of the Two outside Rows at Harvest producing Ten times as much Wheat as the middle Row doth, all Three together produce a Quantity equal to One-and-twenty of this middle Row. Now, supposing the Roots of this Row not to reach through the outside Rows, so as to receive any Benefit from the ho’d Intervals, then this Row might only be equal to one of Nine Rows, which should have been drilled Eight Inches asunder on this Ridge, and then our Three would only be equal to Twenty-one of such Nine Rows. But since it can be demonstrated, that the Roots of our middle Row do pass through both the outside Rows far into the ho’d Intervals, we may well suppose it to be at least double to what it would have been, if it had no Benefit from the Hoeing, and then our Three will be equal to Forty-two of such Nine unho’d Rows. Thus our Crop is Thirty-three in Forty-two (or almost Four Parts in Five) increased by the Hoeing; for though many Fields of Wheat have been drilled all over in Rows Eight Inches asunder, it never has been judged, in Twenty Years Experience, that a Crop so planted, though not ho’d, was, by its Evenness and Regularity, less, cæteris paribus, than a Crop sown at random.