edHelper.com
Inventors and Inventions
Farm

Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   5.45

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    original, horse-drawn, solution, inventor, farmland, better, roots, basis, amount, rail, beginning, people, actually, space, itself, such
     content words:    Jethro Tull, New Horse Houghing Husbandry

Print Jethro Tull
edHelper.com subscriber options:
     Print Jethro Tull  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)
     Quickly print reading comprehension
     Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on Jethro Tull
     Leave your feedback on Jethro Tull  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

Jethro Tull
By Mary L. Bushong 		  
1     When some people hear the name of Jethro Tull, they think of a rock and roll band. The original Tull lived a long time ago. He lived in a time before steam ships, rail roads, radios, or telephones. Jethro Tull was a farmer, but he was also much more.
 
2     Jethro was born in Berkshire, England in 1674. It was great farmland, but he did not appreciate it at first. As the son of a gentleman, Jethro went to school at St. John's College at Oxford. There, he studied to be a lawyer.
 
3     Once he had left school in 1699, he did not choose to practice that trade. Instead, he went to his father's farm in Oxfordshire and managed it for the next ten years.
 
4     One of the first things Jethro noticed was that farmers would plant their wheat seed by throwing it out over the ground. He thought this was a big waste. Sometimes it would fall so thick, it would not grow well, and sometimes not enough would fall, so space was wasted. The farmer could not cover the seeds, and birds ate many before they could grow. He thought there had to be a better way, and he finally thought of a solution.
 
5     Two years after beginning farming, he invented a horse-drawn seed drill. In those days, there were no tractors, and they used animals like horses or oxen to pull the plow. This new invention would drill a hole and plant a seed automatically. The grains could be planted evenly in straight rows without waste. You would think that such a great new idea would make the farmers very happy, but they were not. They got angry with Jethro for trying to change their way of life.

Paragraphs 6 to 11:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Copyright © 2008 edHelper