Gardening Books in Early America - Owned by Landon Carter 1710-1778

Sabine Hall Home of Landon Carter. Landon Carter (1710-1778), was a planter from Virginia, best known for his account of colonial life leading up the American War of Independence, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter.  Carter also wrote 4 political pamphlets & nearly 50 newspaper essays.  He was the son of Robert "King" Carter of Corotoman, Lancaster County, Va. and his wife, Elizabeth Landon Willis Carter. He was educated in England, built Sabine Hall in the 1740s, served in the local vestry, & commanded the militia.

After 3 failed attempts, Carter was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1752, & was rewarded with powerful committee appointments. He publicly defended the House in published pamphlets & newspaper essays until he was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1768. The first to raise the alarm in Virginia over the Stamp Act, Carter was chair of the Richmond County Committee (1774–1776) and a wholehearted supporter of independence during the American Revolution (1775–1783). He died at Sabine Hall in 1778. The list for his library books is based on 1) title pages of the libraries of Landon Carter and Robert Wormeley Carter at Sabine Hall, Richmond County, Virginia photographed by Colonial Williamsburg with the permission of the Rev. Dabney Wellford, Sabine Hall, September 9, 1958 and 2) Curtis, Carol Edith. "The Library of Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1710-1788." Master's Thesis, College of William and Mary, 1981. Many of these books are now owned by the University of Virginia Libraries.

Landon Carter's Books on Landscape, Garden, & Farm

Title: The New Gardener's Dictionary
Author: John Dicks
Info: London. Printed for G. Keith, J. Johnson; J. Almon; and Blyth and Beevor 1771.

Title: Memoirs of Agriculture, and other Oeconomical Arts
Author: Robert Dossie
Info: London. Printed for J. Nourse 1768, 1771

Title: The Experimental Husbandman and Gardener
Author: George Andreas Agricola
Info: London. Printed for W. Mears and F. Clay 1726.

Title: Farriery improved: or, A compleat treatise upon the art of farriery
Author: Henry Bracken
Info: Dublin. G. Ewing 1737

Title: The Art of Hatching and Bringing up Domestick Fowls of all Kinds, At any Time of the Year
Author: Rene Antoine Ferchault De Reamur
Info: London. Printed for C. Davis 1750.

Title: The Compleat Surveyor: Containing the whole Art of Surveying of Land, by the Plain Table, Theodolite, Circumferentor, and Peractor
Author: Leybourn William
Info: London. Printed by R. W. Leybourn for E. Brewster and G. Sawbridge 1653.

Title: The Culture of Silk, or, an Essay on its rational Practice and Improvement
Author: Samuel Pullein
Info: London. Printed for A. Millar 1758.

 "The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778" was edited by Jack P. Greene & published by the Virginia Historical Society in 1965.

For more Legacy Libraries go to Library Thing