DRILL-HUSBANDRY. 



DRILL-MACHINES. 



tillage lands for the purpose of receiving any 

 kind of seeds. 



DRILL-HUSBANDRY. The practice of sow- 

 ing or planting grain and other seeds or roots j 

 with a machine, in regular rows or drills, in 

 place of scattering them by the hand, by which 

 means they are dropped at more equal dis- 

 tances, and -lodged at better depths, than can 

 be done in the latter way. " Of our modern 

 improvements," says Dr. Fothergill (Com. Board 

 o/wtfgr. vol. iv. p. 156), "the introduction of drill- 

 husbandry has been generally allowed to be the 

 most important." Horse-hoeing is intimately 

 connected with it, and for the most part forms 

 part of the same system. 



DRILLING. The act of putting different 

 kinds of crops into the ground in the drill- 

 method. Mr. Bramston gives the result of an 

 experiment on the comparative advantages of 

 narrow and wide drilling. (Journ. of Roy. Eng. 

 dgr. Soc. vol. i. p. 294.) 



DRILL-MACHINES. Implements for dis- 

 tributing seed and manure easily, and at regu- 

 lar distances. A rude kind of drill has been 

 used in agriculture from a very remote period. 

 The cultivators of China, Japan, Arabia, and 

 the Carnatic, have drilled and dibbled jn their 

 seed from time immemorial. (The Chinese 

 drill, or drill-plough, is noticed Quart. Journ. of 

 jfgr. vol. i. p. 675.) After the Hindoos have 

 thus deposited their seed, they use a kind of 

 subsoil plough, Which passes under and loosens 

 the soil to the depth of about eight inches three 

 drills' breadth at a time, (Com. Board of A%r. 

 vi. 355). Gabriel Plattc, in 1638-1653, de- 

 scribes a rude dibbling machine formed of iron 

 pins, "made to play up and down like Virginal 

 jacks ;" and John Worlidge, in his Husbandry, 

 published in 1669, not only advocated the use 

 of the seed drill, but of the manure drill. Eve- 

 lyn, in the same year (Trans. Roy. Soc. vol. v, 

 p. 1056), mentions with much commendation 

 a drill-plough which had been invented in Ger- 

 many, whence it had found its way into Spain, 

 and had been noticed by the Earl of Sandwich, 

 the English ambassador, who forwarded it to 

 England as the invention of a Don Leucatilla. 

 Jethro Tull at a later period (1730-40), devoted 

 all his energies to promote the introduction of 

 this machine, more especially as it admitted 

 the use of the horse-hoe. The united advan- 

 tages of these excited in him the highest en- 

 thusiasm. But it was not until the drill had 

 been gradually improved by the labour of suc- 

 ceeding mechanists, that this invaluable ma- 

 chine, principally through the exertions of Lord 

 Leicester and others, became generally used in 

 England. Thence it appears that the method 

 of sowing corn and other seeds by machines in 

 England is not (as is well remarked by Mr. J. 

 A. Ransome, the eminent agricultural machine- 

 maker of Ipswich, to whom I am indebted for 

 almost the whole of this article), a modern 

 idea, though the machines have been so much 

 improved within the last century as to make 

 them bear but little resemblance to those for- 

 merly in use. 



Passing by those of more ancient date, we 

 come to the inventions of Jethro Tull, for the 

 purpose of carrying out his system of drill- 



husbandry, about 1733. His first invention 

 was a drill-plough to sow wheat and turnip 

 seed in drills, three rows at a time. There 

 were two boxes for the seed, and these, with 

 the coulters, were placed one set behind the 

 other, so that two sorts of seed might be sown 

 at the same time. A' harrow to cover in the 

 seed was attached behind. 



Jethro Tull also invented a turnip-drill some- 

 what similar to the other in general arrange- 

 ment, but of lighter construction. The feed- 

 ing spout was so arranged as to carry one 

 half of the seed backwards after the earth had 

 fallen into the channel ; a harrow was pinned 

 to the beam; and by this arrangement one half 

 of the seed would spring up sooner than the 

 other, and so part of it escape the turnip fly. 

 When desirable to turn the machine, the har- 

 row was to be lifted and the feeding would 

 stop. The manner of delivering the seeds to 

 the funnels in both the above drills was by 

 notched barrels, and Tull was the first who used 

 cavities in the surfaces of solid cylinders for the 

 feeding. Nothing material in the history of the 

 drill occurred afterwards till 1782, and but little 

 progress appears to have been made to that 

 period in drill-husbandry. 



About this tim Sir John Anstruther, near 

 Edinburgh, presented the model of an improved 

 drill-plough of his own invention to the Bath 

 and West of England Society, having had one 

 in use for eight years previous without its get- 

 ting out of order. It was a double drill-plough 

 of simple construction, by which two furrows 

 could be sown at a time, the horse walking 

 between them, and by this means the injury 

 usually done by the horse's feet to the fine 

 ground was avoided. Within the next ten, 

 years twelve patents were taken out for drill- 

 machines, two of which were for depositing 

 manure with the seed ; but the most approved 

 appear to have been those invented by James 

 Cooke, a clergyman of Heaton Norris, in Lan- 

 cashire ; and the general principles of these 

 machines, from their simplicity, have been 

 adopted in the construction of some of the most 

 approved of the present day. 



For a cut of Gooke's grain-drill, see PL 14, 

 fig. 1. 



The seed-box of Cooke's drill, is of a pecu- 

 liar shape, the hinder part extending lower 

 than the fore part. It is divided by partitions, 

 and so supported by adjustable bearings as to 

 preserve a regular delivery of the seed whilst 

 the machine is passing over uneven ground. 

 The feeding cylinder is made to 'revolve by a 

 tooth-wheel, which is fixed on each end of the 

 main axle, and gears with other toothed wheels 

 on each end of the cylinder ; the surface of the 

 cylinder is furnished with a series of cups 

 which revolve therewith, and are of various 

 sizes, according to the different seeds. These 

 deposit the seed regularly in funnels, the lower 

 ends of which lead immediately behind the 

 coulters, which are connected by a beam, so as 

 to be kept in an even line, and are capable of 

 being held out of working when desired by a 

 hook and link in the centre. The seed, as it is 

 deposited, is covered in by a harrow fixed be- 

 hind. The carriage wheels are larger in size 



419 



