1. A book for use in the field.
a. The book in which a land-surveyor notes down the measurements as taken in the field.
1616. A. Rathborne, Surveyor, 136. The order of making of a necessary and fitting Field-booke.
1685. Petty, Will, p. vii. Maps and field-books, the copies of the Downe-survey.
1777. Barmby Inclos., Act 9. A proper field book of the said township.
1807. Hutton, Course Math., II. 64. Enter the measures in a field-book, or rather against the corresponding parts of a rough figure drawn by guess to resemble the field.
b. A botanist’s or naturalist’s book for preserving collected specimens while in the field.
1848. W. Gardiner, Flora of Forfarshire, 56. To preserve good specimens, the collector would require to be provided with a field-book.
1849. Balfour, Man. Bot., § 1229 (1855), 659.
2. (See quot.)
1853. Lytton, My Novel, III. xxix. My great-grandfather kept a Field-Book, in which were entered, not only the names of all the farmers and the quantity of land they held, but the average number of the labourers each employed.
