British Agricultural Revolution far apart. Alternately seeds could be laboriously planted one by one using a hoe and/or a shovel. Cutting down on wasted seed was important because the yield of seeds harvested to seeds planted at that time was around four or five. The seed drill was introduced from China to Italy in the mid-16th century where it was patented by the Venetian Senate. Jethro Tull invented an improved seed drill in 1701. It was a mechanical seeder which distributed seeds evenly across a plot of land and at the correct depth. Tull's seed drill was very expensive and fragile and therefore
Thomas Howard (1651–1701) he had three sons and a daughter. Only one son survived him, dying the year after him aged 14. His daughter Diana married (in 1703) Edward Ward, 8th Baron Dudley and 3rd Baron Ward, who died in 1704, leaving her pregnant with a posthumous son, who succeeded his father in the Dudley estates, but died in 1731 without issue. Thomas Howard (1651–1701) Thomas Howard (1651–1701) was the only surviving son of Sir Robert Howard of Ashtead, Surrey. He served as a Teller of the Exchequer from 1689 until his death, a post that provided him with a house at Westminster.