The harbinger of the “new husbandry”
18 TULL, Jethro.
First edition of Tull’s pioneering work, published by the author “at the request of many distinguished visitors to his farm” at Howbury near Wallingford, Berkshire ( ODNB ). Among Tull’s (1674–1741) various inventions and innovations described here, the most important was the horse-drill. “The drill, which he perfected in 1701, enabled him to sow seeds thinly in parallel rows and continuously in each row. Another of his inventions, the horse-hoe, was then used to improve the weeding and aeration of the adjacent soil. He made many other valuable observations on seed and the rate of sowing, and his inventions first made possible the reduction of manual labour on farms, while the use of his drill saved much seed” ( PMM ). Tull’s arguments were very far from being widely accepted and his improved technology is a good example of a long lag between first inspiration and general adoption. He fought his critics with an enlarged second edition, with illustrations, in 1733, a supplement in 1736, Addenda to the Essay in 1738, and his Conclusion in 1739. The book reached a nominally fourth, posthumous edition in 1762. But it was not until the early 19th century that factory-made precision tools were available to put Tull’s principles to practical use. Writing in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1764, D. Y. Hungerford notes that “the ingenious Mr. Jethro Tull was the first Englishman, perhaps the first writer, ancient or modern, who has attempted with any tolerable degree of success to reduce agriculture to certain and uniform principles; and it must be confessed that he has done more towards establishing a rational and practical method of husbandry than all the writers who have gone before him” (Fussell).
The New Horse-Houghing Husbandry: or, an Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation. London: Printed for the Author, 1731 £17,500 [ 156662 ] Quarto (243 × 185 mm). Uncut in recent half calf and marbled boards to style, spine ruled and decorated gilt in compartments, red morocco label. Title page and last leaf lightly soiled, title with extreme outer corners restored, one or two marginal tears professionally repaired, a few small chips to upper margin, tiny wormhole to lower outer corner of the second half of the work; a very good copy, lightly washed and entirely untrimmed, very rare in such good state. ¶ Goldsmiths’ 6847; Kress 3963; McDonald, pp. 208–9; Perkins 1782; Printing and the Mind of Man 188; Rothamsted, p. 131. G. E. Fussell, Jethro Tull: his influence on mechanized agriculture , pp. 4–5.
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