| Item Description: | "An essay on manures, respectfully submitted to the trustees of the Massachusetts Society of Agriculture, for their premium"--Title page verso.
Michael Laird, bookseller, description: Second edition. 12mo, original printed blue-green wrappers, 47 pages. Wrappers somewhat worn, with the paper on the spine perished; somewhat soiled and a little foxed; some internal dust-soiling; a good, sound copy. Includes notes on care and feeding animals in order to produce high quality and quantity of manure, as well as urine with high concentrations of urea. Comparison to the 40-page edition published in Boston in 1843 by the Massachusetts Society of Agriculture (apparently in an edition of 100 copies per a notice here on the rear wrapper) would suggest this hometown Lowell edition was reset, though not substantially revised (if it was revised at all) and published in part as a promotion for Dana's Muck Manual (likewise published by Bixby & Whiting). The author of the work was chemist S.L. Dana (1795-1868), a Lowell resident; he developed a number of techniques for use in the textile industry in bleaching and printing cloth; his work on the chemical analysis of manures and fertilizers was also (one might be forgiven for saying) ground-breaking (!) |
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