Richard L. Allen

Richard Lamb Allen (October 20, 1803 near Westfield, Massachusetts – 22 September 1869 in Stockholm, Sweden) was an American writer on agriculture.

He was the fourth son of Samuel and Ruth (Falley) Allen, and got his early education at Westfield Academy and Franklin, Connecticut. He studied law in Baltimore in the office of William Wirt while running a school with a friend. But he found himself obliged to seek a more active life on account of his health.

In 1833, he went to Buffalo, New York, and involved himself in mercantile pursuits, and in December 1834, he married Sally Outram Lyman, the daughter of the Hon. Jonathan Huntington Lyman and Sophia Hinckley. His ambition was, through investments in land, to earn enough to take up a life of study and travel. The Panic of 1837 quashed these plans, and he passed the next seven years on his farm on the Niagara River.

In 1842 he started the American Agriculturist in partnership with his elder brother, Anthony B. Allen, but soon after left for New Orleans on a business venture. In 1847, he rejoined his brother, now in New York City, where he had established an agricultural business in connection with the journal. Richard L. Allen resided on Staten Island with his family. In 1856 American Agriculturist was sold to Orange Judd, and the brothers opened a warehouse for supplying improved agricultural implements.

In 1866, three members of Allen's family sailed for Europe. Allen was not able to join them until 1868, and died in Sweden in 1869.

Allen was a Presbyterian Church elder.

• A Brief Compend of American Agriculture, covering crops, animals and equipment (1847)
• History and Description of Domestic Animals, a revision of the portion of Compend on animals (New York, 1848)
• The American Farm Book, a revision of the portion of Compend on crops and equipment with illustrations (1849)
• The Diseases of Domestic Animals (1848)
• American Agriculture
• American Farmer's Muck-Book
• New American Farm Book, an update of the entire Compend (1869, another edition appeared in 1883, edited by Lewis F. Allen, Richard's brother)
• Domestic Animals. (1865) subtitled History and Description of the Horse, Mule, Cattle, Sheep, Swine, Poultry and Farm Dogs. With direction for their Management, Breeding, Crossing, Rearing, Feeding and Preparation for a Profitable Market; also their Diseases and Remedies together with Full Directions for the Management of the Dairy (1865) New-York: Orange Judd.

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• On-line version of this e-book in various formats is at Project Gutenberg. The front matter of this edition also states that it was "Entered according to an Act of Congress in the year 1847 By RICHARD L. ALLEN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York."