Cours complet d'agriculture theorique, pratique...

Paris: Delalain, 1805. FIRST EDITION. Engraved frontispiece in Volume 10, title vignettes, large decorative headpiece at beginning of each chapter. With 20 folding tables and charts (a few oversized) and 269 engraved plates. Contemporary half-calf over hand-blocked marbled boards; a couple of signatures browned, otherwise a superb set, with a number of signature printed on blue paper. First edition of this celebrated work on agriculture and related subjects, written by the Abbé Rozier (1734-93), distinguished French botanist and president of the Société d'Agriculteurs. Rozier, probably the most prolific writer of the eighteenth century on agriculture, completed the first nine volumes before he was killed in his house by a bomb during the 1793 siege of Lyons. The last three volumes, which also included an essay on his life and work, were edited by Chaptal, Parmentier, Biot, Lasteyrie and others. This series is still considered the most significant work on the subject at the time. Rozier also edited the Journal de Physique for the ten years between 1771 and 1780.