A practical Treatise of Husbandry, wherein are contained, many useful and valuable Experiments and Observations in the new Husbandry, collected during a Series of Years … also, the most approved Practice of the best English Farmers, in the old Method of Husbandry, with Copper-Plates of several new and useful Instruments.

London, J. Whiston & B. White, R. Baldwin, W. Johnston, and P. Davey & B. Law, 1759.

4to, pp. xxiv, 491, [9], with folding table and 6 plates (of which 4 folding); title in red and black, large woodcut initials and ornaments; lower margin of early leaves subtly repaired, light dust- and damp-staining to first and final leaves, 3S1 (index) creased; a good copy in recent half calf to period style, marbled sides, spine blind-ruled in compartments with centre-pieces in blind, lettered directly in gilt; lightly rubbed and bumped; front free paper inscribed ‘ex libris Brent Gration-Maxfield'.

£650

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A practical Treatise of Husbandry, wherein are contained, many useful and valuable Experiments and Observations in the new Husbandry, collected during a Series of Years … also, the most approved Practice of the best English Farmers, in the old Method of Husbandry, with Copper-Plates of several new and useful Instruments.

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First English edition, edited and expanded by John Mills – his first agricultural publication. Among the most prolific and respected agricultural authors of the second half of the eighteenth century, John Mills (c. 1717–1786) is first recorded in 1743 in Paris, working on a French edition of Chambers’s Cyclopedia; his first publication did not appear, however, until 1759, with the Treatise of Husbandry derived from the Traité de la culture des terres (1750, and expanded second edition 1753-1762), a treatise by the botanist Duhamel du Monceau (1700–1782) which was in turn based on the writings of Tull.

‘Duhamel, as he was commonly known, was a protagonist of Tull’s methods, in which he carried out extensive and probably costly experiments and demonstrated the financial advantages and increased physical volume of yield the system provided. This book no doubt played a large part in stimulating interest in the drill husbandry, which had fallen into abeyance soon after Tull’s death.’ (Fussell).

ESTC T107757; Kress 5778; Goldsmiths’ 9453; Fussell, The old English Farming Books, 1523-1869 II, pp. 48-49.

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