Domestic medicine : or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. ... To which are now added, some important observations concerning sea-bathing, and the use of the mineral waters; with many other additions / by William Buchan.

  • Buchan William, 1729-1805.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Domestic medicine : or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. ... To which are now added, some important observations concerning sea-bathing, and the use of the mineral waters; with many other additions / by William Buchan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    better, crop of wheat from this land, as I have from the other part of the field. The method I take is thisthe latter end of No- vember I plough the land ; the frofl: during the winter mellows it: the beginning of March following, I plough it again, and harrow it; at both which times I have little to do with my horfes : I then divide it into lots; a man with a large family has a larger lot than a fingle perfon, or one who has only two or three children, allowing about five perches (of 16^ feet fquare) to each in a familv: they then plant it, and put over their potatoes what manure they have colleded the year preceding, (for every cottager has more manure than neceflary for this, from their fires, and a variety of other things,) and during the fummer, after their day’s labour is dohe, they and their wives hoe them j and as every man works more cheerfully for himfclf chan for another, they do not fuffer a weed to grow. In Odober they dig them up ; and it is the mod pleafan^ thing imaginable to fee the men, their wives and children, gathering the produce of their little farms, which is to ferve them the enfuing winter.— Were this plan generally adopted, the labourers would confume but little corn j which would fupply the manu- faduring towns, and we fhould have no occafion to‘im- port. As four acres are fufficient for thirty families, it would take but a fmall quantity of land from every farm ‘ in the kingdom. The way pradifed here is to plant the potatoes in furrows, eighteen inches apart, and a foot apart in the rows. The land about me is of different qualities; on the hills rather light ■, in the vale, near the parilh, inclining to clay j but all fit for turnips: the potatoes arc planted in the low land, being nearer home. The poor at prefenc will not live entirely without bread, as many do in Ireland, though potatoes daily get into ufe more and more ; and I am perfuaded, were my plan gene- rally adopted, in two or three years the labourers in the country would confume but little or no corn. Thirty years ago, tlie poor in this pare of the country would not eat potatoes, if they, could get other roots or vege- tables.” It