Fox, Charles. The American Text Book of Practical and Scientific Agriculture, intended for the use of Colleges, Schools, and Private Students; as well as for The Practical Farmer; Including Analysis by the most Eminent Chemists. Detroit: Elwood and Company, 1854. First Edition. [10765]
Publisher's black cloth, decorated in blind, gilt to spine, 8 x 5 1/2 inches, tight. 1865 owner's signature on ffep, signed also on the title page. x, 353, [1] pages, foxing throughout. Tidemark (dampstain) along the edges of the leaves, darkest at the first and final leaves, but present in all. Fair. Hardcover.
Detroit: E. A. Wales, Printer, Advertiser Steam Press. Binding quite good, text stained.
A text-book written by Fox intended for use in his instructing students in agriculture at the University of Michigan.
Rev. Charles Fox (1815-1854), born in England. He emigrated to the United States in 1836, was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church, bought a farm on Grosse Ile near Jackson, Michigan (1843), and had a church built on the property. Fox owned a large farm and took an avid interest in agriculture, becoming editor of The Farmer's Companion, and the writer of this Text Book for Farmers. In 1853 he began to give lectures in agriculture to students in the university at Ann Arbor, and in 1854 he was appointed the first professor of theoretical and practical agriculture in the University of Michigan. Rev. Fox died from cholera in July, 1854, before he began his professorship.
The inscription of his monument in Burns Park in Ann Arbor reads: "Charles Fox - Professor of Agriculture, the first one chosen for this university, he had already won for himself and his studies many friends, and the people were aroused to great hope for this new science. While holding this office for only the second year, he was snatched away by sudden and premature death. From his native Britain, where his worthy and well-born parents had educated the boy in the village of Westoe, and Doctor Arnold Mustius had instructed his youth in the town of Rugby, the young man betook himself to Michigan. Having been ordained a priest or the Protestant Episcopal Church, he dedicated to God a house built at his own expense on Grosse Isle. He, who, with most noteworthy character, great faith, and unusual humanity, had made his skill in literature and natural science equal to his extraordinary talent, is mourned by none more than by the University. He was born November 22, 1815. He died July 24, 1854."
