SHING. A mode of repairing or ing a hedge by bending down a porthe shoots, cutting them half through e ground, to render them more pliad twisting them among the upright so as to render the whole effective as , and at the same time preserve all inches alive. For this purpose the es to be plashed or bent down must cut more than half through, in order sufficient portion of sap may rise up e root to keep alive the upper part branches. Where hedges are proormed and kept, they can very selquire to be plashed; but this mode ting a hedge is most valuable in the f hedges abounding with hedge-row when from neglect, or from any ause, the hedge has become of irreTowth. See FENCES, HEDGES, and SG. ASTER OF PARIS. One of the n names of the sulphate of lime or PLATTES, GABRIEL. plaster stone, which is found abundantly near Paris. When burnt and reduced to powder, and then mixed with water, it forms a firm, sonorous substance, admirably adapted for forming models and casts. See GYPSUM. PLASTER FOR TREES. See CANKER. PLASTIC CLAY. A clay used in the manufacture of pottery. PLATT, or PLATTE, SIR HUGH, Knt., is stated by Mr. Weston, in his Catalogue of English Authors, to have been "the most ingenious husbandman of the age he lived in." From the same author, and from Sir Hugh's own works we learn, that he spent part of his time at Copt Hall, in Essex, then possessed by Sir Thomas Henneage, near which he had a country seat. In 1594, he lived at Bishop's Hall, in Middlesex, and had an estate near St. Alban's. In the title-page of his works he is styled "of Lincoln's Inn, gentleman;" and, therefore, although he does not inform us of what profession he was, further than that it was widely differing from cultivating the earth, we are justified in concluding that he was in the law. He had a very extensive correspondence with the lovers of gardening, &c. He was living in 1606. The following are his works: 1. Dyvers Soyles for manuring Pasture and Arable Land, 1594. 4to. 2. The Jewel House of Art and Nature, containing divers rare and profitable Inventions, together with sundry new Experiments in the Art of Husbandry, Distillation, and Moulding. Faithfully and familiarly set down according to the Author's own Experience. 4to. 1594. Again in 1653, edited by Dr. Beati. 3. The Paradise of Flora, 1600. 4. The Garden of Eden, or an accurate Description of all Flowers and Fruits now growing in England, with particular Rules how to advance their Nature and Growth, as well in Seeds and Hearbes, as the secret ordering of Trees and Plants. Small 8vo. 1660. 5th edition. A posthumous publication. 5. The second part of the Garden of Eden, &c. never before printed. 1660. "The Garden of Eden" is the same as "The Paradise of Flora," with the mere alteration of the title, by a Mr. Charles Bellingham, a kinsman of Sir Hugh's. The second part of "The Garden of Eden" is entirely an original composition of Bellingham's. (Quar. Jour. Ag. vol. xii. p. 69.) PLATTES, GABRIEL, was of humble origin, but of his lineage, place of nativity, &c. I have discovered nothing. His works, however, demonstrate that he was a practical man of clear intellect, and observing mind. Being a needy man, he at times was dependant upon the bounty of others for subsistence; amongst those who chiefly administered to his relief was S. Hartlib, to whom he bequeathed his papers, few of which were published. He died miserably in the streets, almost in a state of nudity. That he was justly estimated by his contemporaries is evident. Harte says of him, that "he had a bold adventurous cast of mind." Weston, in his Catalogue of English Authors, says he was an original go husbandry and an ingenious wri other author styles him "a sing man,"—a fourth says "he had as excellent a genius in agriculture as any man that ever lived in this nation before him." Yet this man was permitted to live in poverty, and to die ultimately of want, affording another testimony that those who benefit by the efforts of another's genius but seldom feel grateful for or appreciate the benefits they receive, but whilst they are enjoying them, as Frederick of Prussia said in discarding Voltaire, "Having extracted all the juice, I merely neglect the rind." He was the author of 1. A Treatise of Husbandry. 4to. 1638. and 1674. 2. Practical Husbandry improved, a Discourse of infinite Treasure, hidden since the World's beginning, in the way of Husbandry. 4to. 1639, 1653, 1656. 3. Recreatio Agricolæ. London. 1640. 4to. 4. The Profitable Intelligencer. London. 1644. 4to. 5. Observations and Improvements in Husbandry, with twenty Experiments. London. 1653. 4to. He also wrote Art's Mistress," containing his own experiments for fifty years, which however was not published. (Weston's Catalogue, p. 15.; G. W. Johnson's Hist. Gard.; Quar. Jour. Ag. vol. xii. p. 456.) PLEASURE-GROUND. That portion of ground adjoining a dwelling-house in the country; and which is exclusively devoted to ornamental and recreative purposes. In the ancient style of gardening, the pleasure-ground was laid out in straight walks, and regular or symmetrical forms, commonly borrowed from architecture; but in the modern style, it is laid out in winding walks, and in forms borrowed direct from nature. A portion of lawn or smooth grassy surface may be considered as essential to the pleasure-ground under both styles. See GARDENING, Lawn, and Par TERRE. PLOUGH. (Sax. Plou. Dan. Ploegh.) A well-known, perhaps the most ancient, certainly the most valuable of all agricultural implements. There are traces of it in even the earliest of all written authorities, and judging of its importance in agriculture, we can hardly imagine it possible to carry on extensive systems of cultivation in any period or country without its assistance. The first notices of the plough, observes Mr. J. Allan Ransome, from whose excellent work on the impie ments of agriculture this article is, by hispermission, extracted, are brief and slight; we find, however, that in very early times they ploughed with two oxen (Deut. xxii that their plough had a coulter and plongshare (1 Sam. xiii. 20.), and that they ve early aware of the advantages of a winte's fallow. (Prov. xx. 4.) It is certain th their ploughs were long since furnished with wheels; a fact which is proved by the drawings of the early Greek ploughs which have escaped to us, of which the following is one copy. Hesiod (Works and Days, p. 50-41 advised the Greek farmers to have a s plough, that an accident might not rupt the work; and he also enforces the vantages of careful and skilful ploughing The ploughs of Rome were of the 1 simple form; the following engraving one of them I again insert in this place, order that the gradual progress of the of plough-making may be the more read traced. Rivalling these in simplicity and ness of form, are the never altered or proved ploughs of the Hindoos and Chinese, from whose implements it is bable the shape of those of Rome borrowed. This may be seen from following sketches. CHINESE PLOUGH. It is curious to trace the progress of plough-making in England. Those of the early cultivators were of necessity rude and imperfect, for in those days the ploughman made his own plough. A law of the early Britons in fact directed that no one should guide a plough until he was able to make one. The driver was, by the same law, to make the traces by which it was drawn, and these were to be formed of withes of twisted willow; a long exploded custom; many of the olden terms of which, however, are still retained by the rustic ploughmen. Thus the womb-withy is yet called the wambtye or wantye. Withen trees are denominated witten trees, or whipple trees, &c. It is uncertain whether the early British ploughs had wheels; some of those of the Saxons were certainly furnished with them. The following engraving is taken from a Saxon Calendar. (Cotton. MS. Tib. b. 5.) Yet it is pretty certain that they used ploughs of a form rivalling those of modern India in simplicity; a rude sketch of one 1 of these is given in a Saxon MS. (H. MS. 603.) From this cut it would seem th Saxon forefathers were wont to f their horses to the plough by their ta barbarous custom, which certainly formerly practised in Ireland to such extent that the legislature interfered 1634, and declared, by the 11 & 12 Ce c. 15. (Irish Parl.) entitled "An Act ag plowing by the Tayle, and pulling Wool off living Sheep," that "in places of this kingdome there hath be long time used a barbarous custom ploughing, harrowing, drawing, and ing with horses, mares, geldings, and colts by the taile, whereby the cruelty used to the beasts) the of horses is much impaired in this in dome. And also divers have and re use the like barbarous custome of p off the wool yearly from living sheep stead of clipping or shearing of the These wretched practices are then ded illegal, and to be punishable with fine imprisonment. The Norman plough was also frea with wheels, and it was usual fr ploughmen to carry a hatchet to bra clods, as is depicted in the ancient p from whence the following sketch it graved. See antè, p. 48. It is pretty certain that the ox was and for a lengthened period, the only employed to draw the plough Thes though the plough and oxen are s quently mentioned in conjunction Bible, the horse is never alluded to for an occupation: an old British law forhak PLOUGH. se of any animal except the ox for this irpose. The first representation, of which am aware, of a horse employed in the ough, is that given (A.D. 1066) in the pestry of Bayeux. There are evident traces in the early glish agricultural authors of the imrtance which they ascribed to the imoved construction of the plough. This plement, however, was long drawn enely by oxen in Britain. : Jethro Tull, more than a century since, paid considerable attention to the plough; he had even searched into the early history of this implement, and concluded that it was found out by accident, and that the first tillers (or plowers) of the ground were hogs." (Husb. p. 131.) The ploughs which he describes, and of which he gives drawings, were evidently (although rudely and heavily constructed) superior in several respects to all that had preceded them. Fitzherbert, in his Boke of Husbandrye It is not necessary to do more than thus 132), speaks in a manner that shows that slightly advert to the various notices which en in his day plough horses were not are to be found in the early histories and erally employed; he observes, "a hus- pictures of this invaluable implement; for, de may not be without horses and in fact, for ages the plough was little more res, and specially if he goe with a horse than a rude clumsy instrument which served ugh." Worlidge, in his Mystery of Hus-only to rake the surface, instead of making dry, describes (A.D. 1677) very clearly first rude attempt to construct a subplough he tells us, p. 230., "of an enious young man of Kent, who had ploughs fastened together very firmly, the which he ploughed two furrows at e, one under another, and so stirred up land twelve or fourteen inches deep. It 7 looseneth and lighteneth the land to depth, but doth not bury the upper t of the ground so deep as is usually e by digging." When Heresbach wrote 70), it was not uncommon in some of warmer parts of Germany and Italy to gh during the night, "that the moisture fattness of the ground may remain lowed under the clodde, and that the ell through overmuch heate of the he be not diseased or hurt." (31. b.) furrows in the land sufficiently deep for the seeds to be buried. It was not brought to any thing like a perfect tool for the purposes required till the close of the seventeenth century. The Dutch were amongst the first who brought the plough a little into shape, and by some means or other the improved Dutch plough found its way into the northern parts of England and Scotland. Those who have traced the history of the plough agree that one made by Joseph Foljambe, at Rotherham, under the direction of Walter Blythe, author of some works on husbandry, and for which plough a patent was obtained in the year 1730, was the most perfect implement then in use; and to this day it is well known by the name of the Rotherham plough. ROTHERHAM PLOUGH. his plough was constructed chiefly of d; the draught-irons, share, and coulter, 1 the additional plating of iron to the dd-board and sole, being the only parts le of iron. fention must now be made of a step in march of improvements by the ingenious justly celebrated James Small, a Scotch1. He constructed a plough on true hanical principles, and was the first in ventor of the cast-iron turn-furrow, commonly called the mould-board; and, although more than a century has since passed, Small's plough may, in most respects, be referred to as a standard for the elements of plough-making. James Small established his manuf of ploughs and other agricultural ments at Black Adder Mount, in shire, in the year 1763, and di |