Horse-hoeing husbandry

The essay on vegetation and tillage describes a method of culture intended to increase the produce of land and lessen the usual expense, with descriptions and cuts of the instruments employed. The cultivation advice recommends delaying plowing stubble up to the ridges until just before planting, especially in early plowing, because replowing the first furrows may be necessary if dry weather continues.

The account of mint plants reports that roots did not dry even when they sometimes stood a whole day and night in empty glasses, and that the plants lived through a summer. The remarks on the mints argue that salt poisons other plants, although the vessels of marine plants are described as in some ways fortified against its acrimony. The discussion of dung, brine and urine attributes their failure to kill field or garden plants to the salts spending their force on dividing earth. The comparison of corn plants describes more stalks on a hoed plant than on an equally single unhoed plant in the same quantity of ground.