Who was Jethro Tull?
Agricultural Engineer and agrarian revolutionary.
Date and Place of Birth:
30th March 1674, Basildon, Berkshire, England.
Family Background:
Son of Jethro and Dorothy Tull who came from
the Oxfordshire/Berkshire border.
Education:
St. John's College, Oxford. Grays Inn, London.
Trained for a legal career but a lack of family funds meant he had
to go back to farming.
Chronology/Biography of Jethro Tull:
1699: Begins farming
the family land.
1701: He invented
the seed drill, at Howberry farm, Crowmarsh, near Wallingford, Oxfordshire,
which was a mechanical device towed by a horse which not only made
sowing seeds easier than by hand but which was more efficient in
their spreading. His major advance in the technique was the introduction
of sowing seeds in three rows simultaneously. He was determined
to make agricultural methods easier whilst at the same time increasing
yields. His original seed drill was manufactured from pieces of
an old pipe organ that he had dismantled.
1709: Moves to a
farm near Hungerford where he devised a horse-drawn hoe to clear
the weeds which were growing on cultivated land.
1731: Published
his ideas about farming and plant nutrition in "The New Horse
Hoing Husbandry: subtitled, "An Essay on the Principles of
Tillage and Vegetation". His controversial idea was on how
plants take up water and he suggested that if the soil was loosened
around the roots they would more easily be able to make use of any
water. Despite a lot of resistance to his ideas, they were eventually
adopted by landowners, and were later to from the basis of modern
agriculture.
Written Works:
- 1733:
“Horse Hoing Husbandry”.
Marriage:
Unknown
Places of Interest:
BERKSHIRE:
Hungerford
Date and Place of Death:
21st February 1741, Prosperous Farm, near Hungerford,
Berkshire, England.
Age at Death:
67.
Site of Grave:
Hungerford, Berkshire, England.
