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
Seed bead concentric layers of color or stripes of color can be used to make patterns of color in seed beads. Seed bead machinery uses glass rods softened to a red heat, fed into a steel die stamp that forms the shape of the bead with a reciprocating needle that forms the hole. Manual and automatic machinery is in use in the Czech Republic. As the steel dies wear eventually, they are replaced. During the last decade, a new shape of Japanese seed bead, the cylinder bead, has become increasingly popular. They were invented by Masayoshi Katsuoka of the Miyuki Shoji Company