The planting of crops in long, straight, equidistant rows, was
believed by contemporaries to be one of the triumphs of 18th-century
improved agriculture. Drill cultivation allowed more systemic sowing, care,
management, and harvesting of crops than had been possible when there were sown
broadcast (scattered) or grown on ridges.

The Dublin Society strongly advocated the use of drill husbandry. One of its
earliest publications was an edition of Jethro TULL's treatise on drill
cultivation, and in 1771 the society grant-aided John Wynn BAKER's factory near
Cellbridge, Co. Kildare, which manufactured drill implements.

Mr. TULL (1674-1741), an English gentleman farmer, introduced many new
farming methods. In his day, farmers sowed the seed by throwing it by hand. He
regarded this practice as both wasteful and uncertain. So he invented a drill
for boring straight rows of holes into which he dropped the seed. He also
claimed that farmers could keep their soil fertile by frequent hoeing.

His ideas were slowly adopted. Born in Berkshire, and educated at St. John's
College, Oxford University, TULL traveled in France and Italy to observe farming
methods and wrote "Horse-hoeing Husbandry," which was published in 1731.

In Ireland, the planting of cereals in drills was common only on large
farms, but by the 1830s the cultivation of potatoes in drills had become
widespread. In 1852, J. HANSON of Doagh, Co. Antrim, patented a mechanical
potato digger which operated by knocking potato tubers sideways out of raised
drills.

This was a major contribution to the mechanization of farming
during the 19th century.