Mechanization in 1801, displacing the centuries-old hand method of making individual sheets of paper. One of the first mechanical devices used in agriculture was the seed drill invented by Jethro Tull around 1700. The seed drill allowed more uniform spacing of seed and planting depth than hand methods, increasing yields and saving valuable seed. Mechanized agriculture greatly increased in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with horse drawn reapers and horse powered threshing machines. By the late nineteenth century steam power was applied to threshing and steam tractors appeared. Internal combustion began being used for tractors in the early twentieth
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.