Paris: J. Rothschild, 1870. The four large hand-colored folding plates to Siebeck’s third French edition, translated from the German by J. Rothchild. These four plates - in this example, linen-backed into two - form a stunning and very large colored lithographed image 72 x 54 inches wide, that is most often missing from this third Parisian edition. Siebeck, director of public parks and gardens for the city of Vienna, had considerable success with his park and garden plans, and with his writing; in addition to his German publications, his work was translated into French and English (Joseph Newton's PICTURESQUE GARDEN PLANS, 1864; THE LANDSCAPE GARDENER, 1876; and R.H. Westley's ELEMENTS OF THE ART OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 1861). This enormous plan accompanied the combination of two titles which had originally appeared separately: ELEMENTS D'HORTICULTURE OU JARDINS PITTORESQUES... and GUIDE PRATIQUE DU JARDINIER-PPAYSAGISTE. The former was issued with the four plates that combined to form one very large plan, and the latter with the 24 separate plates. These would correspond with the original German editions, DIE ELEMENTE DE LANDSCHAFTSGARTENKUNST IN EINEM PLANE DARGESTELLT...Leipzig, 1861, and IDEEN ZU KLEINEN GARTEN-ANLAGEN AUF VIERUNDZWANZIG COLORITEN PLANEN. Leipzig (1857-) 60. sEE gANAY 269, 3RD EDITION, 1870 for a complete explanation. The large hand-colored plan, composed of four folding plates, shows the outline of buildings, a long body of flowing water which forms a lake at one point, and several winding roads or paths interrupted by structures and lined with carefully placed individual or massed deciduous and coniferous trees. Rare and striking. Yes, that enormous plan. See Dochnahl p. 149 for earlier German editions. Loose, as issued, in printed portfolios (50 x 37 cm); 4 folding hand-colored lithographed plates, linen-backed into two larger plates in this copy.

Edinburgh: W. H. Lizars, n.d. (ca, 1845). Lothian was gardener to W. A. Campbell of Ormsary. This scarce volume, the first English work devoted wholly to alpine plants, appears to be his only published book. It begins with instructions for the location and construction of rockeries, ponds and bogs and the arrangement of plants in the rockery. A second section gives directions for cultivation and treatment, arranged by season, with separate discussion of "tenderer and rarer" plants, as well as advice on cultivation in Wardian cases. The appendix lists nearly 1000 varieties of recommended plants. The illustrations include two engraved plates showing rockery layouts and four hand-colored plates of plants. The first English work devotd wholly to alpines 12mo (16 x 10.2 cm); iii-xiv + 17-84 pp. + decorative illustrated title and 6 plates (four colored).

Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1695. Thomassin was sent by Colbert to study in Rome for four years before returning to France in 1680 and becoming court engraver to Louis XIV. Among his first projects after his return was to draw and publish illustrations of all the sculpture, ancient and modern, used to decorate the palace and gardens at Versailles. The first edition of this work appeared in Paris in 1694. It was quickly reissued, in the edition offered here, by Pierre Mortier in Amsterdam. This Dutch edition includes the same text and plates, but adds a folding engraved plan of the gardens of Versailles and a translation of the text into Latin, Italian and Dutch. The plates depict not only the statuary, but also the fountains, hermae and vases distributed throughout the gardens. A rare second Paris edition with 26 additional plates was published in the same year as the first, but that edition also appeared without the garden plan. Ganay 37; Berlin Cat 4212. Small 4to (19.1 x 13.8 cm); 59 + (1) + (1) + (1) pp. + engraved title, 228 engraved plates, and a folding plan (49.5 x 32.5 cm).

Bar Harbor, Maine: Max Farrand Memorial Fund, 1946 - 1959, (1963). First collected edition. Reef Point on Mt. Desert Island, Maine, was built for Farrand's family in 1883. The gardens and library were eventually opened to the public, and when her husband died in 1945 Beatrix established the Max Farrand Memorial Fund to expand the activities of the gardens and library. For this organization she wrote and published 16 issues of the Reef Point Gardens Bulletin and included in it a variety of articles on horticulture and natural history, in general, and the gardens and grounds of Reef Point in particular. The Reef Point Garden horticulturist, Amy Magdalene Garland, also contributed articles to the bulletins. The bulletins were collected (together with the unpublished 17th bulletin in which Farrand writes her own memorial) and issued in 1963 as a tribute. 8vo (22.6 x 15 cm); 116 pp. (unpaginated) with numerous text illustrations from photographs and with plans.

Knutsford: 1868. A wonderful picture of the rigour demanded in mid-nineteenth century local English horticultural shows. Following the list of various officers and dignitaries come the rules, followed by the various exhibition categories. For professional gardeners there are 30 classes of entry. These range from caladiums to hollyhocks, cut roses to miniature gardens for 1st and 2nd prizes (20/- the highest, being for stove or greenhouse plants in bloom.) For the amateurs, another 18 classes from ferns, foliaged geraniums, pansies, round hand bouquets to British wild plants improved for garden decoration. The highest award here for ferns, at 10/-). Classes open to all are dishes of fruits (25 varieties). The largest category with 60 classes is for Cottagers with displays ranging from best box hive of bees to the “best regulated, neatest, and most productive Cottage Garden, within three miles of Knutsford Parish Church, to be inspected twice during the season ”. This latter gets the top prize of 20/-. There is a small category for florists and nurserymen from any distance. With a two page list of subscribers, a full list of committee members, patrons and officers and two pages of very strict rules. We have not located this item in OCLC, COPAC or the Lindley Library, RHS. Stitched pamphlet, 12 mo (17 x 10.4 cm); (xii) pp. including subscribers’ list and balance sheet.

Orléans: Guillot-Pelletier Fils, n.d. ca. 1906. An informative Art Nouveau period trade catalogue with 20 plates of winter gardens, palm houses, orangeries, and a variety of greenhouses, with illustrations presenting the various styles in their completed settings. Of additional interest are the 84 pages of text offering the names of clients in different parts of France, the particular construction elements provided to them, and a lengthy list of the architects who had worked with them. The time period covered runs from 1880 to 1906.  In OCLC we find only one similar copy, in the Netherlands, of an earlier 1903 edition with fewer pages. Jardins d’hivers, Orangeries, Greenhouses Oblong 8vo (21.1 x 27 cm); (iv) + 20 photomechanical plates from photographs and sketches on rectos only + 84 pp. text. with a single sheet illustrated information flyer folded in three laid in.

(mostly) Rochester: various publishers, late 19th, early 20th centuries. A small unbound sampling of seven American nurserymen’s color plates, mostly from diverse Rochester, N.Y. printers. These plates, demonstrating both chromolithography and stencil or theorem color production, were produced mostly in Rochester, New York, in the second half of the 19th, and beginning of the 20th centuries, to assist and/or accompany” tree pedlars” or nurserymen and nursery salesmen in promoting the sales of the area’s booming nursery business. As described in Karl Sanford Kabelac’s “Nineteenth-Century Rochester Fruit and Flower Plates” ( Vol. XXXV, 1982 Univ.of Rochester Library Bulletin), salesmen were able to buy these plates in individual assortments or bound, sometimes mixing printers depending upon their needs. Here we have three chromolithographs - a Crawford’s Late Peach, an Early Canada Peach, and a Dickinson apple - by Stecher Lithographic Co. and its earlier incarnation, Mensing & Stecher. These would have been printed after 1878, with the Crawford’s Late produced in the late 1880s by Stecher alone. Kabelac identifies Franck A. Stecher as “a leader in the chromolithographic industry in Rochester.” The other four plates appear to be stencil or theorems, possibly with some color lithographed detail. The only one with an identified printer is the Dutchman’s Pipe “drawn and colored from Nature by C.M. Search” a horticultural painter as well as a fruit plate producer from the 1880s. Many of these plates were bound into portfolios or book albums and their owner/salesmen were encouraged to keep the plates as clean of thumb-soiling as possible after showing them to their fruit and flower buying clients. The plates could also be replaced in some of the portfolios. This grouping provides an interesting little study of the various methods of impressing the public with the color available from the nurserymen’s offerings. Seven plates, each measuring approximately 7.4 x 4.4 inches or 19 x 11 cm.; printed on one side only.

New York: Wm. C. Bryant, 1864. This seventh annual report of the Central Park Commissioners is a part of an ensemble of reports, all issued separately over the years, which constitute the one essential documentary resource for the study of America's first and most important major urban park. As reported here, in April, 1863, the Commissioners finally gained the right through the courts to acquire land between 106th and 110th streets between Fifth and Eighth avenues for extension of the park. The Board reaffirms its aim to preserve the site's natural ruggedness and views of distant landscapes. Additional work which occupied the Board this year, in addition to extending drives and walks through newly acquired land, was constructing portions of the enclosing wall, completing most of the unfinished surface of the ground below One Hundred and Second street and the stone-work of the terrace and masonry of the ravine's rustic bridge. A large colored fold-out map of Central Park shows progress of work up to January 1st, 1864. Other plates illustrate the archway under the foot-path for the bridle road south of the meadows, another archway east of the lake and another northwest of the Ramble. There are views of the casino or ladies refreshment saloon and the boat landing, north east of the lake. The whole concludes with a 33 page catalogue of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in the park as of Dec. 31, 1863" with the months of Flowering and Fruiting of such as have conspicuous blossoms or fruits." 8vo (23.5 x 14.5 cm); (ii) + 123 + (i) pp. + large fold-out color map measuring 23 x 87 cm. + 5 tinted lithographed views + 3 untinted lithographs.

London: W. Bulmer and Co, 1794. omamin Pouncy iFirst edition of this important manifesto marking the outbreak of the "picturesque controversy" that continued to dnate landscape gardening theory and practice at the outset of the nineteenth century. Knight attacked the Brown/Repton school in favor of the rough and irregular style also advanced by Price in his theories of the picturesque, that is, gardens which imitate the wild natural scenery in the paintings of Claude and Salvatore Rosa. His lengthy poem provides practical advice for obtaining these results and includes two folding etchings by Benjfrom drawings by Thomas Hearne which illustrate a rural estate laid out in the contrasting styles.THE LANDSCAPE, A DIDACTIC POEM. “No decoration should we introduce, That has not first been nat’raliz’d by use” Henrey 900. 4to (28.5 cm. x 22 cm.); (iv) + 77 pp. + 3 plates (2 folding).