Jethro Tull
from Agricultural Biography: British Authors on Agriculture, 1854
Jethro Tull was a gentleman of an ancient family in Yorkshire, which
had been seated in the county of Oxford, and possessed a landed estate
there. He was born on the paternal property in that county, but not
known at what precise date of time. He was educated at one of our
universities, adopted the legal profession, became a member of Staple
Inn, and was called to the bar in December, 1693, by the benchers of
Gray's Inn, though generally said at the Temple in most accounts of his
life. He made the tour of Europe, and was a keen observer of the soil,
culture, and vegetable productions of the countries which he traverses.
On his return to England, he married, and settled on his paternal farm
in Oxfordshire, where he began to introduce a number of agricultural
experiments, among which he contracted a pulmonary affection, which
sent him to Montpelier to seek a cure in the mild latitudes of Italy
and the South and France. Here he attended most diligently to the
culture of those countries - writing facts and drawing inferences with
a very keen and ardent speculation, He returned to England with
repaired health but a dilapidated fortune - part of the Oxford estate
was sold before his departure, and he now settled with his family on a
farm of his own, called "Prosperous Farm," near Hungerford, in
Berkshire, where he adopted the firm resolution to perfect his former
experimental undertakings.
Mr Tull had very early observed the chance practice of gardeners in
planting beans in rows, and in Lombardy he saw leguminous crops hoed
and cleaned of weeds by means of the seeds falling into the seams of
wide ploughing, and rising in rows or drills, which had descended as
practice from the ancient Romans. He conceived that all plants used for
crops should be placed in rows, and hence came the theory of drilling
the ground for being planted. Tull had also noticed the great benefits
if the soil being pulverized, or minutely severed in the particles; he
had read on the subject, as the observation was as old as any records
exist. On these two principles he set to work on his farm, and
experienced the usual difficulties that attend all new undertakings.
The soil of the farm was not favorable to the drill cultivation; the
old implements were unsuitable and clumsy; the workmen were awkward and
unwilling, and, as usual, would break the new implements in order to
continue the lazy working of the old ones. In the midst of these
difficulties the expenses were much enhanced, and the usual
condemnation was passed on the absurd attempt. But the utility became
evident, and Tull was induced by the neighboring gentlemen who saw its
value, to publish his theory, which he did in 1731, in folio, price
6d., called "New horse-hoeing husbandry, or an essay on the principles
of tillage and vegetation." This work was only a specimen, and was
followed in 1753 by "Horse-hoeing husbandry," folio, price 10s. It has
lately undergone some alterations and additions, and was published by
Mr. Cobbett in 1829. Tull died in January, 1740, at his seat at
Prosperous Farm. He had a son, John Tull, who proved an adventurous
genius, being a good mechanic, and had various success in different
inventions. He first introduced into England the travelling by
post-horses, for which he obtained a patent in 1737. He served in the
army, resumed his schemes, and, not having capital to forward the
undertakings, he was arrested for debt, and died in prison in 1764. His
exit is often erroneously attributed to his father, who ended his days
on the farm in Berkshire, as above stated.
Jethro Tull commenced his system of husbandry by making the ridgelets
of land three feet apart, and planting upon each ridge two rows of
vegetables in a nine-inch distance. The wide intervals were wrought by
the horse-hoe, and the narrow ones by hand-tool. It does not appear
that his ideas ever advanced beyond this conception, or that he had
ever contemplated the uniform ridging of land over extensive fields.
His construction of new implements would necessarily be imperfect, as
all new ideas must be on almost any point, and hence had the bad
success of that, and most similar undertakings, where many influences
concur to present an opposition. Ardent temperaments are generally
deficient in the solidarity that is required for an efficient practice,
and it needs much longer time than the life-term of the one individual
to bring into any degree of perfection the attempts of genius, however
they may be plausible and easy of attachment. Tull succeeded as well as
circumstances would allow - his means, time of life, nature of soil and
climate, unmatured state of ideas, and the customary oppositions. He
showed a grand principle, and left to others the development of its
action.
Our author derived the idea of sowing grains by machine from the rotary
mechanism of an organ, which laid the foundation of all sowing
implements. His drilling of land produced every ridging of ground that
has been done, and his ideas of the pulverisation of soil superseding
the use of manures have led to the continued practice of reducing land
to the finest possible state. It required more loamy soils than are
found in South Britain, and a cooler climate, with more frequent rains
and dews, to show the full value of Tull's conceptions on the drilling
of green crops. Where he operated the main elements were against him,
as is now evinced by the best modern practice. On the other hand, the
drilling of grains succeed well in dry climates; but the placing of
these vegetables in rows yet remains to be of doubtful value. Tull's
practice died with him; but his book got into the hands of Tweedside
farmers, one of whom failed in his attempts to establish the system on
unfavorable soil, and the other succeeded on gravelly loams, and pushed
a most unexampled success. The Norfolk two-horse plough led to the
single drilling of land, and Tull's hoeing and scarifying of land by
frequent movements of the soil have completed the modern system of
green-crop cultivation.
The name of Tull will ever descend to posterity as one of the greatest
luminaries, if not the very greatest benefactor, that British
agriculture has the pride to acknowledge. His example furnishes the
vast advantages of educated men directing their attention to the
cultivation of the soil, as they bring enlightened minds to bear up[on
its practice, and look at the object in a naked point of view, being
divested of the dogmas and trammels of the craft with which the
practitioners of routine are inexpungnably provided and entrenched. His
system most completely revolutionised the whole practice of British
agriculture - a proud prominence certainly for any individual to
attain. The full benefits have not yet been derived, for the clay lands
remain to be subdued by the action of pulverization after the loamy
soils and light lands have been exhausted by the application.
Tull pushed his theory to the extreme of supposing that a very minute
pulverization of the soil would supersede the use of manure, and that
the process would enable the land to produce a continued succession of
crops in any kind of the suitable plants, even of the same vegetable in
the yearly growth. Experience has not yet sanctioned this result; but
if Tull failed to show this extreme use of pulverization in superseding
the use of manures,, he has amply succeeded in proving a comminuted
condition of the soil to be very highly favourable to the action of
fertilizing substance. It is an inherent quality of genius to make
erratic strides; and as the danger of mistakes is ever much greater
than the means of avoiding them, a satisfaction must be entertained
when the success bears any tangible degree with the failures. In Tull's
case the ratio is large and the fall insignificant.
Amateurs in farming yet make pilgrimages to the "Prosperous" farm of
Jethro Tull, where the out-buildings remain in some part of the houses
as they were used by the father of the drill husbandry. The
dwelling-house is modernized, and the locality is found in the parish
of Shalbourne, under the Coomb Hills, about four miles south of
Hungerford. No stone or memorial of any kind marks the grave of Tull -
it is even unknown where his mortal remains were laid. Such was the
reward of a genius which was always genuine, and never went to bed.
From: Agricultural Biography: Containing a Notice of the Life and Writings of
the British Authors on Agriculture from the earliest date in 1480 to
the present time, by John Donaldson, Printed for the author (1854) pages 48-50.
Links:
Biography from The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1843.
Biography from The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, 1858
Today in Science History web page for day of Jethro Tull's baptism, 30 Mar 1674.
A quotation by Jethro Tull.
