Jethro Tull : his Life, Times, and Teaching. 1 5 
tion and were dismissed ; as was said in those days, " It were more 
easy to teacli the beasts of 'the field than to drive the ploughman 
out of his way. I resolved," says Tull, " to quit my scheme 
unless I could contrive an engine to plant sainfoin more faith- 
fully than hands would do. I thought and examined all the 
mechanical ideas that had ever entered my imagination, and at 
last pitched upon the groove, tongue, and spring in the sound- 
board of the organ. With these a little altered, and some parts 
of two other instruments as foreign to the farm as the organ, I 
composed my machine. The first seed-box was worked on the iron 
gudgeon of a common wheelbarrow with a brush-harrow to 
cover the seed." ' It was named a " drill " because when farmers 
used to sow their beans and peas into a furrow by hand they 
called the action dialling." 
Tull goes on to say : — " The drill has been used almost as long 
in planting most sorts of corn, for hand-hoeing, and subsequently 
for horse-hoeing. It has been pretended I brought the imple- 
ment from France or Italy, when it is well known it had planted 
two farms before I went abroad, which was not until April 1711. 
How could I have brought that which did not exist ? '' Tull, 
even at this time, was above all things a clean farmer and waged 
imrelenting war against those thieves and robbers of agriculture, 
weeds. Tull was most particular in cleaning his seed ; this he 
did by drawing it on a table with a table-cloth. His apt similes 
are happy and characteristic : " The crop of wheat with irregular 
intervals, under the old husbandry, by being irregular serve 
chiefly for the protection of weeds ; for they cannot be ploughed 
out without destroying the corn, any more than cannons, firing 
at a breach whereon both sides are contending, can kill enemies 
and not friends." Again he says : " Under the old systein the 
plants stand on the ground in a confused manner, like a rabble ; 
ours like a disciplined army." 
Tull's invention of the drill may be thus described ^ : The 
idea taken from the rotary mechanism of the organ is the 
foundation of all agricultural sowing implements .... The first 
invention was a drill-plough, to sow wheat and turnijj seed in 
drills three rows at a time. There were two boxes for the seed, 
and these, with the coulter, 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. He afterwards invented 
a turnip-drill somewhat similar to the other, but of a lighter con- 
struction, and so arranged in regard to the dropping of seed, and 
' Gentleman'* Magazine, 17G4. 
' See J. A. Bansome's Imjjlevients of Agriculture. 
