A Colonial Williamsburg garden historian outlines traditional methods for planting and tending 50 different kinds of vegetables, profiling such 18th-century utilities as shelter paper and fermented manure while sharing complementary weather-watching guidelines, organic techniques and seed-saving advice.

This learned and engaging work of English horticultural history by Alicia Amherst (1865-1941) was published to great acclaim in 1895. In its third edition by 1910, the book provided the starting point for later works of garden history and still stands as a highly readable introduction to the topic.