1. A newe tracte or treatyse moost profytable for all Husbandemen, and very frutefull for all other persons to rede. London: by Rycharde Pynson. 4to. (1523). See Typographical Antiquities, by Ames and Herbert, ed. Dibdin, ii. 503. This is the _first_ edition, and very rare. It was described by Dibdin from Heber’s copy, supposed to be unique. See Heber’s Catalogue, part ix. p. 61. The note in Hazlitt that a copy of this edition is in the Bodleian Library is a mistake, as I have ascertained. It is not dated, but the Book on Surveying, printed just afterwards, is dated 1523; and there is no doubt as to the date. It is remarkable for an engraving upon the title-page, representing two oxen drawing a plough, with drivers.
2. “Here begynneth a newe tracte,” etc. (See p. xx.) London, Southwark; by P. Treuerys, 4to. (No date; but between 1521 and 1531). In the Camb. Univ. Library. This is the only other edition which (as far as I know) has the picture of ploughing upon the title-page.[14]
3. By Thomas Berthelet, in 1532 (Lowndes). It is “12mo in size, but in eights by signatures,” and therefore 8vo. (A. Wallis; Derby Mercury, Nov. 1869).
4. By Thomas Berthelet; 8vo.; the edition here reprinted from the copy in the Cambridge University Library. There are also two copies of it in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The title-page has merely the words: “THE | BOKE OF | HVS- | BANDRY;” printed within a border bearing the date 1534. The reverse of the title-page is blank. On the second leaf, marked A ij, begins “The aucthors prologue.” The rest of sheet A (which contains in all only _six_ leaves) is occupied with the Prologue and “the Table;” and is not foliated. Then follow sheets B to M, all of _eight_ leaves, and sheet N, of _two_ leaves only. Sheets B to H have the folios numbered from 1 to 56; sheets I, K, L have the folios numbered from 51 to 75; and sheets M and N, from 81 to 90. Thus the six numbers 51-56 occur twice over, and the five numbers 76-80 do not occur at all. It is not quite certain that the apparent date is also the real one; for at the end of Berthelet’s print of Xenophon’s treatise of Housholde, which has 1534 within the same border upon the title-page, there is a colophon giving the date as 1537. This border was evidently in use for at least three years. See Dibdin, iii. 287.