Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull (1674–1741) was an English agricultural innovator who promoted seed drills and horse-drawn cultivation to improve crop production.

Seed drill: A machine that sows seeds in rows at controlled depth and spacing. Tull’s drill mechanized sowing and reduced seed waste compared with broadcasting.
Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: Jethro Tull’s 1731 book advocating systematic horse-drawn cultivation and drilled sowing. This book set out the methods and arguments that made his agricultural program known.
Jethro Tull (agricultural engineer): An English agricultural engineer who developed an influential eighteenth-century seed drill. This modern namesake is distinct from the earlier farmer and writer.
Mechanical seed drill: A powered or animal-drawn machine that meters seed into furrows at regular intervals. Later drills developed the controlled sowing principle associated with Tull’s design.
Horse hoe: A horse-drawn implement that cultivates soil between crop rows. Tull promoted horse hoes to loosen soil and control weeds between drilled rows.
Agricultural Revolution: The long transformation of farming in Britain and Europe through new practices, tools, and land systems. Tull’s innovations formed part of Britain’s wider eighteenth-century agricultural change.
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend: An English politician and landowner associated with promoting turnip cultivation and crop rotation. Townshend’s farming reforms are often discussed alongside Tull’s in accounts of agricultural change.
Charles Newbold: An American inventor who patented a cast-iron plow in 1797. His plow represents a later mechanized field tool, distinct from Tull’s drill.
Row planting: The practice of sowing crops in parallel rows rather than scattering seeds across a field. Rows made Tull’s horse-drawn cultivation possible without damaging the crop.
Plant nutrition: The processes and materials through which plants obtain the resources needed for growth. Tull argued that plants fed chiefly by absorbing finely divided soil.

Linked from 8 pages