SEED DRILL INVENTOR

Franklin Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 140, 30 November 1938, Page 7

SEED DRILL INVENTOR

PROGRESS IN 200 YEARS It was away back in 1731 that a Yorkshireman, Jethro Tull invented a horse drawn drill which was the forerunner of all the mechanical row seeders which were to follow. Jethro Tull appears to have been the very first to grasp the idea that ci'ops —turnips, for instance —should be planted in rows, instead of broadcast, so that the weeds which grew between the rows might be killed by working with a horse hoe. Tull’s inventions worked wonders in saving manual labour, but like many other inventors, he spent his substance working out his ideas, and died a poor man. In 1836 an English clergyman named Cooke invented the device of revolving cups for picking up the grain in the hopper and throwing it into the tops of the flexible tubes, which led it down to the coulters. At least one of this type came to Australia, as it was shown at an exhibition of ancient implements in Adelaide in 1936. As with a number of other farm machines and implements, grain drills had their origin in England, but their great development took place in America. In that country were produced shoe and disc drills, and also the device whereby artificial fertiliser might be dropped into the soil along with the grain. About the ’eighties these began to arrive in Australia, and