The English Improver Improved : or, The survey of husbandry surveyed : discovering the improveableness of all lands, all clearly demonstrated from principles of reason, ingenuity, and real experiences ; and held forth under six peeces of improvement de Bligh, Walter - 1653

The Kings-head in the Old Bayley: John Wright, 1653. Third edition, small square octavo, pp (18), 274, (12), lacking the engraved frontispiece and with only one (of two] engraved folding plates, two full page woodcut illustrations and a small woodcut within the text, the remaining title page a little stained, the hinge at the title page cracked and open but still very sound, the hinge at the rear similar but weaker, the free endpaper ar the rear loose and frayed, a little age-toning throughout, but otherwise quite clean and sound, old half calf and boards, rubbed and worn, the joints beginning to split. The title page runs over two pages - the first part pictorial and engraved, the second part letterpress; it is the engraved part which is missing in this copy. With the armorial bookplate of John Norcliffe Preston. [Blith's books on husbandry show notable good sense, based on the author's and others' farming experience. He presents his judgements and opinions carefully, and made textual changes in subsequent editions to describe new farming practices. His "The English Improver, or, A New Survey of Husbandry" was dedicated to both houses of Parliament and to the "ingenuous reader". A second edition appeared in the same year, and third, "much augmented" in 1652, with a second part containing "Six Newer Pieces of Improvement". This was dedicated to Cromwell, the council of state, nobility, gentry, soldiers, husbandmen, cottagers, labourers, and the meanest commoner. The new information concerned new crops such as woad, clover, sainfoin, lucerne, etc. This copy offered is yet another edition, of 1653. Blith intended to write a further book on animal husbandry, but apparently did not complete it. His Parliamentarian sympathies prevented any of his work reappearing after the Restoration of 1660. The books were written "in our own natural country language and in our ordinary and usual home-spun terms". He urged agricultural improvement, but showed less enthusiasm for enclosure, through his concern for the poor: enclosure should not be allowed to cause depopulation. Enclosure had in fact caused turmoil in his village of Cotesbach in 1603 and made it a centre of the Midland revolt of 1607. Though Blith showed sympathy for the common man and understood the aspirations of the Diggers, he did not think the latter were realistic. Blith's ideas brought some improvement in techniques, but the period of peace under the Commonwealth was short-lived, and in general, substantial improvement had to wait for the Agricultural Revolution of the next century.]. Third edition. Half-Leather. Fair.