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 hub that are turned to move the spindle and chuck vertically. A drill press is typically measured by its "swing", calculated as twice the distance from the center of the chuck to the closest edge of the column. Thus, a tool with 4" between chuck center and column edge is described as an 8" drill press. A drill press has a number of advantages over a hand-held drill: For most drill presses—especially those meant for woodworking or home use—speed change is achieved by manually moving a belt across a stepped pulley arrangement. Some drill presses add a third stepped pulley