Happy Jethro Tull Day!

Agronomist-inventor Jethro Tull increased carrying capacity by as much as a factor of 8 with, among others, his invention of the seed drill (seen here with his surname distribution during the cultivation of the US frontier):

The seed drill is a simple device, simple enough that it can be built by a competent yeoman farmer, which Jethro Tull was.

If I were King, I would replace Saint Patrick’s Day with Jethro Tull Day, in honor of this man to whom so many owe their very biological existence—born to his own biological existence as he was during March 1674 in Basildon, Berkshire, UK. The Friday nearest Mid-March seems a good time for such a celebration since we don’t know his exact date of birth (he was christened March 30 according to Parish records), and Friday night is better for raising a glass of ale, (brewed from the fruit of the harvest made more bountiful by the seed drill) than some random day of the week.

Jethro Tull, rather than being properly honored, lost his land and was hounded by creditors.

If any of my cousins near Lower Basildon in Berkshire would be so kind as to drop some flowers on his grave at St Bartholomew’s church I would appreciate it.

PS: Not to denigrate Chinese agricultural accomplishments—which are undoubtedly quite profound in their own right—to those who claim that Jethro Tull “adopted” the much earlier Chinese device which they call a “seed drill”, let them compare the drawing above with this drawing of the Chinese “seed drill” and keep in mind that Tull had to go through multiple generations of design before he arrived at a device which achieved the required multiple of crop yield with the above pictured device:

Posted by James Bowery on Friday, March 16, 2007 at 05:06 PM in
Comments (7) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Guessedworker on March 16, 2007, 08:22 PM | #

James,

I though you said you were a Fraser. But I detect a certain likeness with old Jethro.

Here is an article on the overgrown nature of St Bartholomews churchyard, with some thumbnails of gravestones. It was compiled in 2004. The introduction reads:-

This is a very nice place. The church is not particularly noteworthy, but its grounds are. Parts of the grounds have been left to grow unhindered, for the sake of a number of rare plants and its insect population. In particular, the secondary graveyard, behind the church, is very overgrown, but this makes for some nice scenery. The church is some distance from Lower Basildon, and is down a lane towards the Thames, on the opposite side of the main road from the village. Note: Jethro Tull was buried here - I didn’t find his grave.

Posted by James Bowery on March 17, 2007, 04:10 AM | #

Well, as long as we’re exploiting my dangling set ups left from my post:

One of the things neo-“pagans” seem never to get quite right, or rite, as the case may be, is this whole fertility thing. Sure there is metaphorical reference made to planting seed in the soil usually in conjunction with birth-controlled sexual activity—frequently gay. But the point of fertility seems to be lost on these people as their reproductive rates are lower than almost any other group of people’s.

So I find myself particularly bemused by the idea of a pagan rite of spring focusing on a genuinely rural tradition that helped create the population explosion on the American frontier, and its name which brings life to the phrase “form follows function”:

Seed Drill

Posted by Tomo on March 17, 2007, 04:16 PM | #

Sorry, but the seed drill was used in China for 2000 years before Jethro Tull adopted it. Look it up.

Posted by Guessedworker on March 17, 2007, 04:22 PM | #

To employ the word “Adopted” is deceitful, surely, Tomo. Did Jethro tour China like a proto-Victorian plant-hunter?

Posted by James Bowery on March 18, 2007, 02:35 AM | #

Here is the Chinese version of “the seed drill” which some claim, with no documentation nor apparent justification, Jethro Tull “adoped” from the Chinese:

Posted by Michelle on April 14, 2009, 06:38 AM | #

But why is Jethro Tull the so often credited as the “inventor” of the seed drill?

Maybe he adopted it from the Chinese, maybe he didn’t, but he most certainly was not the first one to make a seed drill!

Posted by keith on October 23, 2010, 07:21 AM | #

The same argument might be used about the Wright Brothers; they weren’t the first people to design or build an aircraft, they probably weren’t even the first to actually fly, but they did manage to fly far enough, etc, for to be accepted that their’s was the first viable aircraft and thus they are credited with be the ‘first to fly”.

In the same way Tull, became credited as the ‘inventor’ of the seed drill that changed agricultural efficiency and allowed farmers to grow sufficient crops that they could sell a larger proportion of what they grew, instead of being essentially self-sufficent.

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