Seed drill China, and later a seed drill by Jethro Tull that was influential in the growth of farming technology in recent centuries. Even for a century after Tull, hand sowing of grain remained common. In older methods of planting, a field is initially prepared with a plow to a series of linear cuts known as "furrows". The field is then seeded by throwing the seeds over the field, a method known as "manual broadcasting". The seeds may not be sown to the right depth nor the proper distance from one another. Seeds that land in the furrows have better protection from
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