The Semi-Tropical Agriculturist and Colonists' Guide. Plain Words upon Station, Farm, and Garden Work, House Keeping, and the Useful Pursuits of Colonists.
Brisbane: Watson & Co, 1875. Hardcover. A rare book, with an overlaid label at the foot of the title page, stating the publisher as "Brisbane Watson & Co. 1875" An indispensable guide to newly arrived immigrants to Australia, in which "the leading effort is to connect the systems of Agriculture, including Stock Farming and Gardening as followed in the Old Land, with what is gradually proving to be the best practice in the warmer sections of Australia". ... In the articles upon direct farming, the object in view is to furnish a connecting link between the practice of the Mother Country, and as laid down in the standard works, with the practice found applicable in Semi - Tropical Australia" (i).
Contents range widely, from "Agriculture, Stock raising and farming, through Barns, Beer, Climate of Australia, Coffee cultivation, Cotton, Engines, Fences, Fruit Gardening, Grain crops, Harvesting, Horses, Honey Bee, Kangaroo, Wallaby and 'Possum skins; Kitchen gardens, Live stock, Life in the bush, Opium, cultivation of; Poultry; Ploughs & ploughing; Salt, Seasons in Australia; Sheep; Silk & Silkworms; Soils; Sugar Cane; Tanning; Tobacco, Water; and Wines. With a separate table of contents titled 'Medical Help in Time of Need', including death adders & other snakes, poisonous bites & stings; poisonous plants and sunstroke. Many in text illustrations.
8vo, iv (but actually viii), 224 pp, advertisements [7]. Adverts on both the front & back pastedown. Original green cloth, gilt title at spine. Covers rubbed and marked, rubbed through on front foredge and corners, cloth split the length of the front outside hinge but holding well. Internally, oval bookseller stamp, Wm. Hopkins. The title page with small strip laid down, covering Slater as publisher, with Watson & Co. Last leaves with advertisements a bit ruffled. Ferguson 12017. OCLC: 221067934 records 5 libraries holding copies. Very good overall. Item #22010
Price: $375.00