The English gardener; or, a treatise on the situation, soil, enclosing, and laying-out of kitchen gardens; on the making and managing of hot-beds and green-houses; and on the propagation and cultivation of all sorts of kitchen-garden plants, and of fruit trees...
London: printed by A. Cobbett, 1838. 8vo, pp.[4], 338, 2; folding plan of the kitchen garden, a few illus. in the text; orig. cloth-backed paper-covered boards, paper label on spine worn; one signature loosening, mild foxing, good. Cobbett (1762-1835) enjoyed a considerable reputation in America in the late 18th century as a pamphleteer for Federalist causes, and is perhaps best remembered for his concern for agrarian reform in England. From Printing & the Mind of Man, in its citation for his Rural Rides (London, 1830) we quote: "In 1821 a committee proposed certain remedies to alleviate the persistent agricultural depression. Cobbett (1762-1835) disagreed with their conclusions, and "made up his mind to see for himself, and enforce by actual observation of rural conditions, the statements he had made in answer to the arguments of the landlords before the Agricultural Committee." His method was to make a series of tours on horseback up and down the land, and to publish accounts of them in The Register (they were subsequently collected and published in Rural Rides). The vividness and force of his writing, whether in describing the countryside or his encounters with those who worked in it, have made this work an enduring classic. In his accounts of the poverty caused by wide-spread enclosure he struck the first blow in a long struggle for improving the condition of laborers on the land, and the opinions he expresses in many ways anticipate the doctrine of the Young England group as led by Disraeli. Item #15477
Price: $175.00
