Industrial Revolution sectors of the economy. However, per-capita food supply in Europe was stagnant or declining and did not improve in some parts of Europe until the late 18th century. Industrial technologies that affected farming included the seed drill, the Dutch plough, which contained iron parts, and the threshing machine. Jethro Tull invented an improved seed drill in 1701. It was a mechanical seeder which distributed seeds evenly across a plot of land and planted them at the correct depth. This was important because the yield of seeds harvested to seeds planted at that time was around four or five. Tull's seed
Shaker Seed Company brown paper with the seed variety name, where the seeds came from, and sometimes the grower's name. The first paper packets were pieces of paper cut into eight different sizes for the different seed types. The small paper envelopes were made by hand and folded and glued accordingly. Ebenezer Alden invented a printing block device for printing the envelopes by hand. Specific machines were made early in the nineteenth century to speed the process of cutting and printing the packets. New Lebanon Shaker journals referred to the seed packet sizes as: pound-bag size, bean size, beet size, onion size, cucumber