History of agriculture the New Leicester sheep. Machines were invented to improve the efficiency of various agricultural operation, such as Jethro Tull's seed drill of 1701 that mechanised seeding at the correct depth and spacing and Andrew Meikle's threshing machine of 1784. Ploughs were steadily improved, from Joseph Foljambe's Rotherham iron plough in 1730 to James Small's improved "Scots Plough" metal in 1763. In 1789 Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies was producing 86 plough models for different soils. Powered farm machinery began with Richard Trevithick's stationary steam engine, used to drive a threshing machine, in 1812. Mechanisation spread to other farm uses through the
Drill bit shank shank was common before 1850, and is still in production. At first, the tapered shank was just rammed into a square hole in the end of the drill. Over time, various chuck designs have been invented, and modern chucks can grasp and drive this shank effectively. It has been difficult to find a reference to the included angle of the taper, but 7 different bits were measured, and they all had an included angle of 8 ± 0.25 degrees. The straight shank is the most usual style on modern drill bits, by number manufactured. The whole of the drill bit,