A Treatise on the Cultivation and Management of Fruit Trees; In Which A New Method of Pruning and Training is Fully Described…

8vo, modern dark brown calf, original spine label laid down, 13 engraved plates (all but one folding), 280 pp. Archival repairs to edges of the first few leaves, a bit of soiling, and some foxing, especially to plates, some spreading of pages; otherwise very good in a fine modern binding. While this work was first published in London and Philadelphia in the preceding year, you can make a case this work was a follow-up to a book by Forsyth published on trees in 1791. Forsyth (1737-1804) was superintendent of the royal garden of St. James and Kensington, where he was so successful that Parliament voted him thanks and gave him a monetary reward. This work was published in 1802 in Britain and America, and went through several editions. In his treatise Forsyth discusses a wide variety of fruit trees, and gives considerable detail on how to care for them. The book contains 13 engraved plates that help illustrate the various trees he talks about. The work should be considered important because the American edition was published at a time when scientific agriculture and the nursery business was in its infancy. Additionally, the American edition includes a preface on the growing of trees in the United States by the Anglo-American political writer and agriculturalist William Cobbett (1762.1835). This edition contains the same text and plates as the 1802 Philadelphia edition, but includes a new eight page letter (pp. 273-280) from Peter W. Yates, dated Albany 1803. Arnold Arboretum p.256. (Inventory #: 100955)