A Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry & Trade.

£8,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Rare. ESTC records many institutional copies, but these are largely single issues of the periodical rather than the complete volumes as found here. Before the recent sale of the Rothamstead copy at Forum Auctions only a handful of complete collections of this periodical have appeared at auction. The first trade and agricultural periodical in England. A Collection of Letters, “appeared at monthly intervals from September 1681 to 1683 (though the final numbers emerged from the press only in 1685). Each issue consisted of Houghton’s lengthy editorial, plus one or more letters, covering all aspects of agriculture and land improvement and occasionally venturing into matters of commerce or popular science and technology; they dealt with matters then under active discussion by progressive agriculturalists. Houghton was the first to remark on the cultivation of the potato as a field crop , just beginning at that time. His practice was to send the letters free of charge to those who agreed to supply him in return with local prices and news. His correspondents included many small farmers, countrywomen, rural merchants, and husbandmen such as John Worlidge, besides his fellow members of the Royal Society, among them **John Evelyn, John Flamsteed, Edmond Halley, and Robert Plot”** (ODNB). Issue no. 12 has a long description by John Evelyn on bread with information of “The sorts of French Bread”, “Brioche” and “Household-Bread”. “An Account from Mrs. A. Lancashire, of Manchester, shewing

• Binding: Hardcover

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