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Henri Louis DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU

Traité des arbres fruitiers ; contenant leur figure, leur description, leur culture.

Saillant & Desaint, à Paris 1768, in-4 (25x34,5cm), (1f.) (2f. de faux-titre et titre) (1f. tit. fr.) (XXIXp.) (1p.) et (1f. priv.) 337 pp. et (1f.) (2f. de faux-titre et titre) 280pp., deux volumes reliés.

Traité des arbres fruitiers ; contenant leur figure, leur description, leur culture
[Treatise on Fruit Tree]

First edition illustrated with a frontispiece by Sève, engraved by Launay, and 180 plates (with numerous figures) natural scale and admirably carried out according to the drawings of Claude Aubriet, Madeleine-Françoise Basseporte and engravings by Catherine Haussard, Charles Milsan, Herisset...
 
Contemporary bindings in full blond calf, spine in five compartments richly decorated with gilt panels and fleurons as well as the title pieces and volume labels in red and green morocco, triple gilt fillet frame on the boards, ribbed leading edges and spine ends, endpapers framed with gilt lace-work tooling, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
Corners rubbed, some chafed patches on the boards, top spine-end of the first volume showing a small tear. Some sections and plates browned.
 
This very remarkable and famous work stands out from two points of view; that of the wonderfully executed illustration, and that of the fundamental theoretical work of Duhamel du Monceau, which served as a reference and manual, the author noting the difference between the varieties of gardeners and the classifications of naturalists. In his Treaty on forests, Duhamel had already used the methods applied to fruit trees (transplanting, re-rooting ...) to multiply species and save forests; methods that he long experimented with at his family estate with his brother. The engravings exclusively represent table fruits, as well as numerous graft and pruning models. Nearly 250 species of fruit are thus described (pears, plums, apples, cherries, grapes...). The work was produced with the collaboration of Father Le Berriays who contributed a little over a third of the drawings as well as a large part of the text. It will be recalled, for all practical purposes, that Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau is considered the founder of modern agronomy, since he was the first to describe and theorise the mode of development of trees.

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