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Wisdom and Folly of Ancient Book-Farmers. [June, 



dropped wheat seeds into the holes meant for carrots. He 

 claimed that, by dibbing wheat instead of sowing it broadcast, 

 a man could increase his yield per acre from 4 quarters to 15. 

 Few farmers were likely to believe so extravagant a promise. 

 But Plat was on the track of a great discovery, although he 

 and his immediate successors took the dibbing of beans as their 

 model, and intended the seed to be deposited by hand. Others 

 worked in the same direction. Francis Maxey (1601) described 

 the new manner of setting corn, and invented a machine which 

 punched holes in the ground. 



On similar lines Gabriel Plattes championed the new process 

 so eagerly that he gained the nickname of The " Corn-setter." 

 He rivalled Sir Hugh in the extravagance of his promises. 

 Those who followed his system and used his drill (patented 

 1639) were promised a hundred-fold increase in their yield. 

 He died shirtless, and starving for want of bread, in the streets 

 of London. But agricultural writers did not lose sight of the 

 suggestion. Worlidge, for example, whose Sy sterna Agricultural 

 (1669) deserved, on the whole, in spite of many defects, its 

 reputation as a standard authority, came nearer the mark. 

 He invented a drill to make the furrow, sow the seed, 

 and deposit the manure. The machine is figured and 

 described in his book. But he appears never to have made 

 or tested his implement. Professor Bradley of Cambridge, 

 who (1727) constructed the machine from Worlidge' s drawing, 

 found that the instrument would not perform any of its three 

 functions. 



It remained for Jethro Tull, the greatest original genius 

 in the history of English farming, to invent and perfect a 

 practical drill. It was used for the first time on his farm at 

 Crowmarsh, near Wallingford in Berkshire, somewhere 

 between the years 1699 and 1709. On the drilling of corn 

 and roots he based much of his system of clean farming. By 

 drilling wheat and keeping the soil clean and stirred between 

 the rows, he grew it for many years in succession without 

 manure. Applied to turnips the process trebled their value. 

 But, as he mournfully says, though he grew better crops, at 

 less cost, and with greater economy of seed than his neighbours, 

 none followed his example. It was not till drilling of corn 

 and roots had been enthusiastically adopted in Scotland, and 

 thence had drifted back over the English borders into the 

 northern counties, that it gained any general hold in this 

 country, years after Tull's death. 



