Such ploughs were certainly in use as early as 1844, perhaps earlier.

The next step forward was to substitute for horses a traction engine.

Today one may see on thousands of farms a tractor pulling six, eight, ten, or more ploughs, doing the work better than it could be done by an individual ploughman.

On the "Bonanza" farms of the West a fifty horsepower engine draws sixteen ploughs, followed by harrows and a grain drill, and performs the three operations of ploughing, harrowing, and planting at the same time and covers fifty acres or more in a day.
The basic ideas in drills for small grains were successfully developed in Great Britain, and many British drills were sold in the United States before one was manufactured here.

American manufacture of these drills began about 1840.