Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill, lived much of his life near Crowmarsh, writes CHRIS KOENIG

Why would a pop group founded in 1968 take the name of an Oxfordshire agriculturist born in the 17th century? I wondered this as I stared at a cairn commemorating an international ploughing competition, apparently held in a field at Warborough in 1956 and inaugurated, according to a grandiose tablet, by the Duke of Gloucester.

Apt that, I thought - admittedly in a post-prandial haze, having just eaten excellent fish and chips at The Cricketers in Warborough - since Jethro Tull lived for many years down the road in Wallingford and across the Thames in Crowmarsh Gifford.

Jethro Tull (1674-1741) revolutionised the business of ploughing. He wrote Horse-hoeing Husbandry "on the principles of tillage" in 1733 and then faced incredible opposition and vituperation at the hands of labourers and farmers who reckoned his labour-saving ideas would put them out of work.

But, in the words of my 1927 edition of Chambers Encyclopaedia, "his work was ere long recognised as epoch-making".

Berkshire claims Jethro Tull as its son, since he was born and is buried in Basildon and, of course, Wallingford was part of Berkshire until the county boundary changes of 1974. But, as a matter of fact, he lived much of his life on the Oxfordshire side of the river at Howberry, near Crowmarsh, where he carried out his agricultural experiments and earned his name as the "Father of British Agriculture".

Here he perfected his seed drilling method to replace the old system of simply scattering seeds and hoping that they might germinate, thereby increasing yield eight-fold.

He was the son of a Berkshire gentleman farmer, also called Jethro, of Basildon, and went up to St John's College, Oxford, aged 17, but apparently never graduated.

Instead he entered Gray's Inn, where he is still listed as the son and heir of Jethro Tull of Howberry, Oxfordshire. Upon becoming a barrister he took a long tour of Europe, but instead of simply looking at the art and architecture, as was the wont of young men on the Grand Tour, he studied methods of agriculture.

On his return to Howberry he worked so hard with his experiments that, in the words of one 19th-century Berkshire history: "By intense application, vexatious toil, and too frequently exposing himself to the vicissitudes of heat and cold in the open fields, he contracted a pulmonary disorder, which, not being found curable in England, obliged him a second time to travel, and to seek a cure in the milder climates of France and Italy."

Back in England he found himself severely financially embarrassed and forced to sell Howberry. He moved to a smaller place called, ironically enough, Prosperous Farm, at Shalbourne, near Hungerford, where he adapted his inventions for the new soil conditions he found.

His ideas were taken up by landowners who profited greatly after his book, which neighbours persuaded him to publish, came out. But he himself appears to have been anything but prosperous. It seems he had trouble working with others and, according to the 19th-century Notes on Basildon: "His expenses were enhanced in various ways, but chiefly by the stupidity of the workmen employed in constructing his instruments, and in the awkwardness and maliciousness of his servants, who, because they did not or would not comprehend the use of them, seldom failed to break some essential part or other, in order to render them useless."

But why was the pop group named after him? Leader of the group Ian Anderson has explained that in the beginning the band used to change its name each week. During the week that the agent by chance called it Jethro Tull the group was asked to play the Marquee Club. Then the name stuck.