Agriculture in the United Kingdom sixfold by 1650. Improvements in transport, particularly along rivers and coasts, brought beef and dairy products from the north of England to London. The Kingdom of Great Britain was created on 1 May 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union. At this time, Jethro Tull, a Berkshire farmer, had recently invented his famous rotating-cylinder seed drill. His 1731 book, "The New Horse Hoeing Husbandry", explained the systems and devices he espoused to improve agriculture. The book had such an impact that its influence can still be seen in
Seed drill hopper filled with seeds arranged above a series of tubes that can be set at selected distances from each other to allow optimum growth of the resulting plants. Seeds are spaced out using fluted paddles which rotate using a geared drive from one of the drill's land wheels—seed rate is altered by changing gear ratios. Most modern drills use air to convey seed in plastic tubes from the seed hopper to the coulters—it is an arrangement which allows seed drills to be much wider than the seed hopper—as much as 12 m wide in some cases. The seed is metered