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.

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.

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.

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.

Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, was the most celebrated English landscape garden of the eighteenth century. "Much visited and publicized, it had enormous influence on garden design, especially after experiments there in 'natural' gardening in the 1730s. It is historically important because it remained at the growing point of taste throughout the 18th c., exhibiting every stage of the garden revolution. Its final phase of idealized landscape survives relatively intact." (OXFORD COMPANION TO GARDENS, page 537). Stowe's fame brought it many visitors, and Benton Seeley, a local bookseller and engraver, published its first guide book in 1744. Seeley's guides went through several editions, being continually revised and enlarged over the course of the century, and did much to spread the influence of Stowe as a model for the English landscape garden. Jefferson owned at least two of them. In 1797 Seeley's son completely revised the work, including a new and different series of plates. 8vo (21 x 13 cm); 44 pp. + 20 engraved plates (2 folding) including folding garden plan

Maund was a pharmacist, botanist and bookseller who was most noted as the publisher of several botanical periodicals with colored plates, the most famous of which, THE BOTANIC GARDEN, began in 1825. The FRUITIST appeared as a sequel to that series, although the format of its illustrations differed from the earlier flower plates by presenting a single subject per page instead of four. These delicately hand-colored wood engravings depict a variety of fruits placed above their printed descriptions and framed within an elaborate printed border. Included are 34 apples, 24 pears, 6 plums, 3 gooseberries and 7 other fruits. In the present volume the fruits have been grouped by type, with varieties placed in alphabetical order, rather than in the random order in which they were originally received by subscribers. 4to (21 x 17.5 cm); (iv) + engraved title + 72 leaves each with a hand-colored wood engraving of a specimen of fruit.

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).

The enlarged and partially revised second edition, which includes significant material supplementing the original version of 1776. The newly added preface (128 pages) provides, among other things, an extended commentary on writings on garden design published since the first edition. There are also 75 pages of end notes and a new 100 page section on trees, consisting primarily of a "Tableau Dendrologique" listing the various features of over 1000 varieties of trees. Morel's THEORIE, following shorter works by Girardin and Watelet, presented the most thorough treatise on the new theories of natural garden design which dominated French taste at the end of the 18th century. It was also the first treatise on garden design in the natural style (French or English) to have been written by a professional rather than an amateur. Morel's practical experience is evident throughout, which may help account for the high esteem in which the book was held by French landscape gardeners far into the nineteenth century. Drawing heavily on Whately's OBSERVATIONS ON MODERN GARDENING, Morel rejected the formal symmetry of classical French gardens in favor of the picturesque and "natural" style associated with the English. He did not, however, actually visit England and its gardens until after the publication of the first edition, and the comments he added to this edition are the first to reflect first-hand experience of the places Whately had described. All these additions make this the generally preferred edition for purposes of study. The preferred edition for study. Ganay 98. Two volumes, 8vo (21 x 14 cm); (viii) + cxxviii + 234 + (1, errata), (iv) + 340 + (2, errata) pp. + engraved frontispiece.

First edition of the most substantial and popular original French work to advocate the natural landscape style of gardening in France. Morel never visited England, thus his ideas followed more directly from French examples (including his own gardens); nevertheless, he also drew inspiration from the published theories of Whately and Watelet and from the influence of his close association with Girardin at Ermenonville. Morel trained as an architect and geographical engineer, but his long career was focused almost entirely on garden design. He worked on at least 50 parks and gardens, including: Guiscard, Ermenonville, Casson, Launay, and La Malmaison. Extensive descriptions of Guiscard and Ermenonville are used here as examples to illustrate his ideas, although his account of Ermenonville claims more personal credit for its design than is appropriately due. But however significant Morel's activities as a creator of gardens may have been, it was as the pre-eminent theorist of natural garden design that he had the greatest impact. Of all French gardeners of the picturesque school, he stood furthest from the fashionable and decorative anglo-chinois aspects of garden design and advocated a style more purely imitative of nature. As such, his ideas were far more influential on the later "style paysagiste" than those of his contemporaries, and in many respects formed the (often unacknowledged) theoretical foundation for much of French garden design throughout the 19th century. The pre-eminent French theorist of natural garden design of his time. Ganay 98; Berlin Cat. 3469; Musset-Pathay 1822. 8vo (18 x 12cm); (viii) + 397 + (3) pp.; page 140 misnumbered p. 148.

An interesting original photo-illustrated typed manuscript presented for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Horticulture and Forestry at Ohio State University. Asserting that "the one who takes the most interest in home surrounding lays the best foundation for other undertakings," Long proposes solutions to making a country home where no previous improvements exist and discusses, to a lesser extent, conditions where old improvements are in need of change and improvement. His chapters cover: selecting the site (for convenience and beauty); laying out the grounds and arranging the buildings (outbuilding the neighbors is "an unworthy motive"); planning the country residence (convenience, beauty, economy of space and durability); grading and general improvements (re-use excavated soil and aim for luxuriant lawn and shrubbery); planting trees and shrubs (plant common trees of the forest rather than "puffed up varieties of catalogs" and plant with an eye to the vista); designing walks, drives and entrances (no right angles!) improving older homes (the lawn is of paramount importance). Following the text are nine full-page original photographs mounted on heavy stock with text opposite offering commentary. Long considers these as supplementary to his thesis. Figure 1 is a perfectly planted lawn with a woman in turn-of-the century dress holding a basket of flowers; Figure 2 displays successful street planting and a horse-drawn carriage; Figure 3 is a tree and shrub planting on small grounds; Figure 4 shows planting as background and protection; Figure 5 demonstrates planting for a "cozy corner" with two figures in period dress; Figure 6 - the placement of a large home within the grounds; Figure 7 - a well-planted lawn sweeping around to the rear of the house; Figure 8 is the scene at Figure 1 from a different viewpoint; Figure 9 reveals the open effect created by continuing planting around the house. These amateur photographs have great appeal and certainly demonstrate widely applied principles which created much of the middle class residential American landscape at the turn of the century. Bound typed manuscript, 27 x 21 cm, 28 unnumbered pp. with text typed (or mimeographed) on rectos only + 9 plates of original photographs, measuring 12 x 15.7 cm, with 9 ff. opposite providing typed commentary; a few tissue guards to photos removed, but laid in at front.

First edition, from the eighteenth century manuscript. A signed presentation inscription from Ganay. This copy unnumbered, but....”auteur” of an edition limited to 750 copies on papier vélin fin de Voiron and 27 on papier en forme de japon. With an introduction by Ernest de Ganay who recounts the recovery of this eighteenth century treatise in manuscript form at the Bibliothèque municipale de Caen. Harcourt was "...a pioneer of informal landscape gardening in France." (OXFORD COMPANION TO GARDENS pg. 244.) whose own garden designs at Harcourt were mentioned in DeLille's poem on gardens and in Arthur Young's travel account of 1788. Harcourt's designs for the Princess of Monaco's gardens at Betz is referred to in a 1792 edition of Cerutti's LES JARDINS DE BETZ. Although the treatise existed as somewhat "secret" literature among Harcourt's contemporaries and peers, it was publicly referred or alluded to by the Prince de Ligne, De Lille and Arthur Young. At Harcourt's reception at the French Academy in 1789 M. Gaillard claimed that the treatise was composed before a theory for the design of "jardins irreguliers" was known in France. Ganay 403 and Ganay/Vignal 5. 18mo (15.5 x 10.6 cm); 253 + (v) pp.