RANDALL, Joseph.

(Pursuant to the Notice thrown out by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.) The Construction and extensive Use of a newly invented Universal Seed-Furrow Plough…upon an easy, steady principle, suited to all soils… Also, by the invitation of the Society, the construction of a draining plough… With the construction and use of a potatoe-drill machine, pointing out the benefit arising from this wholesale culture… To which is added, an essay on the theory of a common plough… London: Sold by John Wilkie… []. 1764.

4to, pp. xi, (ii), xiii–xiv, (i) blank, (11)–97, and 7 folding engraved plates. Contemporary quarter calf and marbled boards (rebacked, preserving the original red morocco label). Light foxing on the first and last few leaves, and offsetting of the plates (more so on the first plate), but a very good copy. Bookplate of Earl Fitzwilliam on the front pastedown.

FIRST EDITION. Jethro Tull had published his New Horse-Houghing Husbandry in 1731, which began a revolution in agriculture by advocating sowing seed carefully and precisely in rows with a seed drill and hoeing the ground between the rows with a horse-drawn hoe. Tull’s revolution was slow to gain momentum, however, partly due to the reluctance of agricultural workers to accept the new system, and partly because of a dearth of mechanical drills and hoes. It was to promote the new methods that Randall published two books on the subject and designed four implements, a drill (seed-furrow plough), a spiky roller to pulverise the soil, a potato planter, and a draining plough. These machines were not particularly well designed or effective, but they and Randall’s two books about them (both published in the same year) were instrumental in spreading the news of drill husbandry. This is one of a very small number of eighteenth century books devoted to technology in agriculture. The large and detailed plates show the potato drill and the draining plough. Quite rare: COPAC locates 4 copies (there is no copy in the British Library). Fussell, More Old English Farming Books, p. 58. McDonald, Agricultural Writers, p. 212.

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