Jethro Tull

author

Jethro Tull

1674–1741

Best known for helping change the way crops were planted, this English agricultural reformer pushed for more precise, efficient farming at a time when those ideas were still new. His writings and inventions made him one of the most influential figures in early modern agriculture.

1 Audiobook

Horse-hoeing husbandry : or, an essay on the principles of vegetation and tillage. Designed to introduce a new method of culture; whereby the produce of land will be increased, and the usual expence lessened. Together with accurate descriptions and cuts of the instruments employed in it.

Horse-hoeing husbandry : or, an essay on the principles of vegetation and tillage. Designed to introduce a new method of culture; whereby the produce of land will be increased, and the usual expence lessened. Together with accurate descriptions and cuts of the instruments employed in it.

by Jethro Tull

About the author

Born in Berkshire in 1674, Jethro Tull trained in law and studied at Oxford, but he is remembered for a very different career. After turning to farming, he became deeply interested in how crops could be planted and cultivated more systematically.

He is especially associated with the seed drill and with new methods of sowing in rows and hoeing between them. These ideas were not universally accepted in his lifetime, but they helped shape the wider changes that became part of the British Agricultural Revolution.

Tull also wrote about his methods, most famously in Horse-Hoeing Husbandry, sharing both practical advice and his larger theory of cultivation. He died in 1741, and his name has lasted far beyond his own era because of the lasting impact he had on the history of farming.