Jethro Tull (agriculturist) the seed so that it could grow. Before the introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to plant seeds by broadcasting (evenly throwing) them across the ground by hand on the prepared soil and then lightly harrowing the soil to bury the seeds to the correct depth. In his 1731 publication Tull described how the motivation for developing the seed-drill arose from conflict with his servants. He had struggled to enforce his new methods upon them, in part because they resisted the threat to their position as labourers and their skill with the plough. Jethro Tull invented some
Seed drill innovation permitted farmers to have precise control over the depth at which seeds were planted. This greater measure of control meant that fewer seeds germinated early or late and that seeds were able to take optimum advantage of available soil moisture in a prepared seedbed. The result was that farmers were able to use less seed and at the same time experience larger yields than under the broadcast methods. While the Babylonians used primitive seed drills around 1400 BCE, the invention never reached Europe. Multi-tube iron seed drills were invented by the Chinese in the 2nd century BCE. This multi-tube