Improvements in Farming 57 



was original. He formed strong views about the importance of 

 deep and thorough, cultivation, believing that to work the soil, 

 to keep it well pulverized and clear of weeds, rendered the use of 

 manure largely or wholly unnecessary. About 1701 he invented 

 the drill for sowing wheat and other crops, so that there might 

 be space enough between the rows to run a horse-hoe. In 1733 



Jethro Tull's Wheat Drill. 



he published his Horse-hoeing Industry in which he advocated this 

 system. His drill was not at all widely adopted during his life- 

 time. After an interval it was introduced in Scotland, and its 

 use spread slowly back to England. 



Between 1730 and 1760 Lord Townshend devoted himself with 

 great energy to the cultivation of his estate in Norfolk. The 

 profitableness of a rotation which brought in turnips and clover 

 between the corn crops, and the avoidance of a cropless year of 

 fallow, had been impressed by Bradley and others on all interested 



