Background
Tull was born in 1674 in Basildon, Berkshire, to Jethro Tull and his wife Dorothy, née Buckeridge or Buckridge.
St John's College, Oxford
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Tull was born in 1674 in Basildon, Berkshire, to Jethro Tull and his wife Dorothy, née Buckeridge or Buckridge.
Tull grew up in Bradfield, Berkshire and matriculated at St John's College, Oxford, at the age of 17. He trained for the legal profession, but appears not to have taken a degree.
In 1701 Tull invented and perfected his machine drill and began experiments in his new system of sowing in drills or rows sufficiently wide apart to allow for tillage by plough and hoe during almost the whole period of growth. In 1709 he moved to a farm near Hungerford and from 1711 to 1714 travelled in France and Italy, making careful observations of the methods of agriculture in those countries which aided and confirmed his theories as to the true use of manure and the importance of "pulverizing" the soil. He did not publish any account of his agricultural experiments or theories until 1731, when his Horse-hoeing Husbandry appeared. This was followed by The Horse-hoeing Husbandry, or ah Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation, by J.Т., in 1733. He was attacked in the agricultural periodical The Practical Husbandman and Farmer and accused of plagiarizing from such earlier writers as Sir A. Fitzherbert, Sir Hugh Plat, Gabriel Plattes (fl. 1638) and John Worlidge. Tull answered in various smaller works forming additions to his main work. He died on the 21st of February 1741.
Tull's work on agriculture initiated a new movement in 18th-century agriculture called "horse-hoeing husbandry" or "new husbandry." His system was supported by Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau in France, Michel Lullin de Chateauvieux in Switzerland, John Mills in England, and many others. It offered two major innovations: scarifies and horse hoes and the use of drills.
The 1970s progressive rock band Jethro Tull was named after him.
Tull married Susanna Smith of Burton-Dassett, Warwickshire. They settled on his father's farm at Howberry, near Crowmarsh Gifford, where they had one son and two daughters.
