Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c21.6

c21.6

A gentleman who is now here on a visit, informs me that his grandfather, who farms part of his own estate, practices the Drill Husbandry, but found the Drill plough dropped the grain so unequally, that he laid it aside; and now, from a conviction of the superiority of the Drill Husbandry, uses a drill roll, which has a number of pegs upon it, and makes holes in straight lines, into which the seed-grain is dropped by hand. This is a tedious way, and he informs me has also its defects, as it is done by children whose hands, in the cold season when wheat is sown, are apt to get numb, and they often drop too many grains into each hole. However, many prefer this method to the Drill plough at present in use. Whether the plough with a horizontal share for covering in the drills is in use in England, I know not; if not, it will be an acquisition to those who practice the Drill Husbandry. I am also equally uninformed, whether the instrument used here for cutting up the weeds between the drills is known in England. It is simply three small mamoties set upon three teeth, placed at the same distance from each other as the teeth of the Drill plough.