Nuova Maniera Di Seminare E Coltivare Il Grano.
4to. viii, 54 pp., 1 folding engraved plate, 2 folding tables. Disbound. Printer's crease slightly affecting image on plate but without loss. Generally excellent. In this book, Giuseppe Rigacci describes a new sowing machine and a hoe for controlling weeds. Rigacci knew the work of the English writer Jethro Tull (here spelled 'Thull') and of Duhamel in France, both of whom had developed such machinery and promoted their use in their native countries. A second essay (pages [27]-54 in this volume) is by Bartolomeo Mesny on the value of introducing new, more productive plants. He cites tobacco and maize from America, rice from the Orient, sesame from Egypt as plants which had already increased the productivity of the land on which they were grown. He urges further experimentation and acceptance of useful exotics. Not in NUC; OCLC records Bibl. Cent. Musée Nat. Hist. Nat'l.
The development of mechanical farm implements was one of the important achievements of 18th-century technology. The "Academia dei Georgofili" was formed in Florence (where one of its buildings remains) for the purpose of improving Tuscan agriculture.
* BM 203:20.
Price: $675.00