<P> This innovation permitted farmers to have precise control over the depth at which seeds were planted . This greater measure of control meant that fewer seeds germinated early or late, and that seeds were able to take optimum advantage of available soil moisture in a prepared seed bed . The result was that farmers were able to use less seed, and at the same time experience larger yields than under the broadcast methods . </P> <P> While the Babylonians used primitive seed drills around 14000 BCE, the invention never reached Europe . Multi-tube iron seed drills were invented by the Chinese in the 2nd century BCE . This multi-tube seed drill has been credited with giving China an efficient food production system that allowed it to support its large population for millennia . This multi-tube seed drill may have been introduced into Europe following contacts with China . In the Indian subcontinent, the seed drill was in widespread use among peasants by the time of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century . </P> <P> The first known European seed drill was attributed to Camillo Torello and patented by the Venetian Senate in 1566 . A seed drill was described in detail by Tadeo Cavalina of Bologna in 1602 . In England, the seed drill was further refined by Jethro Tull in 1701 in the Agricultural Revolution . However, seed drills of this and successive types were both expensive and unreliable, as well as fragile . Seed drills would not come into widespread use in Europe until the mid to late 19th century, when manufacturing advances such as machine tools, die forging and metal stamping allowed large scale precision manufacturing of metal parts . </P> <P> Early drills were small enough to be pulled by a single horse, and many of these remained in use into the 1930s . The availability of steam, and later gasoline tractors, however, saw the development of larger and more efficient drills that allowed farmers to seed ever larger tracts in a single day . </P>

Who developed a seed drill that planted seeds in straight rows