Basildon Essex United Kingdom

Jethro Tull is considered to be one of the early proponents of a scientific (and especially empirical) approach to agriculture.

Influenced by the early Age of Enlightenment, hee helps transform agricultural practices by inventing or improving numerous implements.

Tull innovates with the seed drill, a device for sowing seeds effectively, in order to implement his ideas on how to sow sainfoin, an important forage for heavy working horses in agriculture, and an excellent source of nectar for honey production as well as pollen for bee food.

Such a device had been suggested by John Worlidge, by 1699, but there is no evidence that he had built a drill.

Tull's machine is probably used by 1701.

Tull also advocates the use of horses instead of oxen and invents a horse-drawn hoe for clearing weeds, and makes changes to the design of the plow that are still visible in modern versions.

His interest in plowing derives from his interest in weed control, and his belief that fertilizer is unnecessary, on the basis that nutrients locked up in soil could be released through pulverization.

Although he is incorrect in his belief that plants obtain nourishment exclusively from such nutrients, he is aware that horse manure carries weed seeds, and hopes to use it as fertilizer by pulverizing the soil to enhance the availability of plant nutrients., born in Basildon, Berkshire, to Jethro Tull, Senior and his wife Dorothy, née Buckeridge or Buckridge, was baptized there on March 30, 1674.

He grew up in Bradfield, Berkshire and matriculated at St John's College, Oxford at the age of seventeen, but appears not to have taken a degree.

He was later educated at Gray's Inn.

After marrying Susannah Smith of Burton Dassett, Warwickshire, he had settled on his father's farm at Howbery, near Crowmarsh Gifford, where they had a son and two daughters.

Tull had become ill with a pulmonary disorder and traveled Europe in search of a cure.

In his travels, he had found himself seeking more knowledge of agriculture.