SYSTEMA AGRICULTURAE;; the mystery of Husbandry Discovred.Treating of the several new and most advantagious ways of tilling, planting, sowing, manuring, ordering, improving of all sortes of gardens . .. with an account of instruments and engines ...to which is added Kalendarium Rusticum ... and Dictionarium Rusticum: or, the interpretation of rustick terms. by J. W.

London: Tho. Dring, 1681. The third edition, corrected and amended, with one whole section added. Frontispiece and engraved plate. Three parts in one volume. Folio, old calf, rebacked. pp. [xxviii], 334 (misnumbered 134),vi. Lacks the corner of one leaf without affecting the text, leaf opposite the engraved frontispiece "The explanation of the frontispiece" expertly remargined, little wrinkled. The NUC locates only 2 copies. Wing 3600; Goldsmiths 2412; Kress 1549. "... generally considered one of the most enlightened of the seventeenth - century writers in gardening and husbandry ..." (Henry): little is known of him except that he lived in Petersfield, Hampshire. The Book, which gathered into focus the scattered information published during the Commonwealth, was the first systematic treatise on husbandry on a large and comprehensive scale. and was undoubtedly a very wide step in the advancement of the art. The book contains much more enlightened observations than any which had previously appeared and features a design for a seed drill. Also includes a section on fishing and another on bees. First published in 1669, and this went through a number of editions (1675, 1681, 1687, 1716).