RANDALL, [Joseph].
The Semi-Virgilian Husbandry, deduced from various experiments. Or, an essay towards a new course of national farming, formed from the defects, losses, and disappointments, of the old and new husbandry, and put on the true biass of nature, in the production of vegetables, and in the power of every ploughman, with his own ploughs, &c. to execute…
London: Printed for B. Law…Thomas Field…and John Wilkie… .1764
8vo, pp. lxiii, (i), 356, (11), (1), and 3 engraved plates (2 folding). Contemporary calf, spine neatly repaired, new red morocco label. Armorial bookplate of Penry Williams, and his signature on the title-page.
FIRST EDITION. “The book not only described the best common practice of the day, but pointed out the advantages of the Tullian system, especially when it was carried out with the aid of the implements designed by Mr. Randall… Donaldson, nearly a century later, estimated the work as valuable as it embraced widely the new system of pulverization, or the drill cultivation, and applied it in very tolerable perfection, and I, too, feel that it played an important part in spreading the drill husbandry gospel, whatever faults of style the author may have had” (Fussell). The plates show Randall’s spiky roller and several types of plough. Fussell, More Old English Farming Books, pp. 58–61.
£650.00
In stock
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