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Michigan State University

British Studies: the 18th Century, a Guide to Topics in the MSU Libraries' Collections: AGRICULTURE

This is a guide to 18th-century British studies materials, particularly in our Special Collections and Rare Books unit.

AGRICULTURE

The British 18th-Century Studies Collection has general works on agriculture and farming in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, the United States, and 12 English counties. There are also a bibliography, dictionaries, manuals, a society publication, and several periodicals. There are books on many agriculture, farming and related topics: alfalfa, cattle, cattle breeds, cattle breeding, feeds and feeding, trade, agriculture chemistry, corn, (meaning wheat), corn laws, farm management, forage plants, grain, grain trade, incubators, inoculation, irrigation, land tenure, land titles, land value, landlord and tenant, livestock, meat industry and trades, sheep, sheep breeding, parturition, plows, plowing, poultry, control of rats, soils, soil fertility, swine, tillage, tobacco, wheat and its diseases, wool, and wool industry. There are a great number of books about horses--on hooves, horsemanship, horseshoeing, and draft horses.

Notable works in Murray and Hong Special Collections include the following: Richard Bradley's Farmers Letters to the People of England (1767); Arthur Young's Six Month Tour Through the North of England (1771); Jethro Tull's Horseshoeing Husbandry, or an Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation (1733); Henry Kame's Gentleman Farmer (1776); and John Worlidge's Systema Agriculturae (1669).