Plantation and Farm Instruction, Regulation, Record, Inventory and Account Book.

This is the title page of an 1852 farm book "for the use of the managers on the estate of Philip St. Geo. Cocke, and for the better Ordering and Management of Plantation and Farm business in every particular." The book includes instructions on farming and forms for keeping plantation records. Cocke, who owned plantations in Powhatan County and in Mississippi, required detailed manuals for directing the work of his plantation managers. The title page shown here includes an epigram from Alexander Pope: "Order is heaven's first law." This book came from Cocke's private library.