The 13th-14th centuries Rasulid corpus of agricultural texts represents one of the most important sources for reconstructing the agricultural history of Yemen. In the late 13th century the sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Umar wrote a short treatise entitled "Milh al-malaha fi ma'rifat al-filaha" (The Fine Science of Elegance in the Knowledge of Agriculture). This is not only the first major agricultural text of the Rasulid era, but also the one most focused on the range of cultivated plants in Yemen at the time. So far two extant copies of the text, both defective and relatively recent, are known. Fortunately, al-Ashraf's text is quoted verbatim in the later "Bughyat al-fallahin" of his grand nephew, al-Malik al-Afdal al-'Abbas. There are four known copies of the latter treatise, as well as an abridgement compiled for the sultan and with marginalia in his hand. This abridgement is, given its context, the most authoritative for certain problematic terms that later Yemeni copyists either did not know or otherwise garbled. In reconstructing the original text of Milh al-malaha, I am working with all the relevant copies. The importance of the text is not only its early date, but the range of information relevant to the practice of agriculture in Yemen at the time. Unlike the latter text of al-Afdal, al-Ashraf does not borrow from other traditions, nor does he include information about areas outside Yemen. This talk will discuss the process of reconstructing and translating the text, outlining its significance in the history of Yemeni agriculture, and indeed, the development of agriculture in Arab tradition.