An Oak Spring Sylva: A Selection of the Rare Books on Trees in the Oak Spring Garden Library 9780300242553

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AN OAK SPRING SYLVA

C o

R N

·u s cana.den£.5. L.

--

AN OAK SPRING

SYLV A A SELECTION OF THE RARE BOOKS ON TREES IN THE OAK SPRING GARDEN LIBRARY DESCRIBED BY

SANDRA RAPHAEL

OAK SPRING GARDEN LIBRARY UPPERVILLE VIRGINIA

1989

DISTRIBUTED BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW HAVEN & LONDON TEXT © SANDRA RAPHAEL ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND MANUSCRIPTS© OAK SPRING GARDEN LIBRARY PRINTED BY MERIDEN-STINEHOUR PRESS, LUNENBURG LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER ISBN

89-61800

0-300-04652-9

FRONTISPIECE: C. L. L'HERITIER DE BRUTELLE

Comus 1788

A DOGWOOD DRAWN BY P.

J.

PLATE I

Comuscanadensis,

REDOUTE

In memory of ARTHUR HOUGHTON LOWE 1853-1932

'!his page infenlionalfy left blank

CONTENTS

page lX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE

XV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

X1X

INTRODUCTION

XXI

DESCRIPTIVE METHOD

XXV11

TREES (1-II)

I

Society of Gardeners, Duhamel, Collection du Regne vegetal, Duchesne, Houttuyn, Kom, Bliitter-Abdriicke, Kennion, Phillips, Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Loudon AMERICAN TREES (12-21)

45

Merian, Furber, Gray, Catesby, Marshal!, Michaux, Browne INDIVIDUAL TREES (22-31)

71

du Choul, L'Heritier, Riche, Forbes, Withers, Williams, Cobb, Kenrick, Julien, Miniscalchi 93

PLANTING (32-46)

Evelyn, Hunter, Duhamel, Kergariou, Hanbury, Boutcher, Meader, Hayes, Nicol, Pontey, Steuart, Cruickshank, Cobbett 139

INDEX

V11

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

L'HI3RITIER DE BRUTELLE Cornus I788 Plate I Cornus canadensis, a dogwood drawn by P. J. Redoute frontispiece

c.

L.

H.

L.

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU Du Transport .. . 1767 Page 252 An oak twig tailpiece

title-page

H. WILLEBEEK LE MAIR's illustration of'LittleJumpingJoan' in Little Songs of Long Ago: More Old Nursery Rhymes, the original tunes harmonized by Alfred Moffat (I9I2) s. HA YES A Practical Treatise on Planting I794 Page 85 A vignette with oak twigs and tools

page XVI xvn

J. c. LOUDON Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum I838 Volume m page I74I English oak tree with deer, drawn by J. G. Strutt

xxn

F. A. MICRA ux Histoire des Arbres forestiers de l'Amerique I8I2 Volume 11 plate I7 Acer striatum, moose wood or striped maple, drawn by H. J. Redoute H.

L.

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU Des Semis ... I760 Page 35I A palm and bay tailpiece

SOCIETY OF GARDENERS Catalogus Plantarum I730 Preface page xii Text and list of gardeners

H.

XXlv XXVl

3

Plate I Bermudas Cedar and two Firr trees, drawn by Jacob van Huysum and printed in colour by Elisha Kirkall

4

Frontispiece by Henry Fletcher: detail of corners

5

Plate I 3 Virginian Hawthorns, drawn by Jacob van Huysum, engraved by Henry Fletcher and coloured by hand

6

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU Traite des Arbres I755 Volume I page 30 Headpiece 'Acer-Virginianum', details of a Virginian maple drawn and

L.

engraved by N. Ozanne

9

Volume I page 90 Tailpiece

9

Volume 11 plate 95 'Tilia. Tilleul', a lime tree printed from the block used in the I565 edition of Mattioli's herbal

IO

P.A. MATTIOLI Commentarii ... I565 Page I74 Tilia foemina, a lime tree from the series of large woodcut illustrations made by Giorgio Liberale and Wolfgang Mayerpeck

II

H.

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU Traite des Arbres I755 Volume 11 page 243 Headpiece 'Salix', details of a willow drawn and engraved by N. Ozanne

L.

IX

I2

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

H.

H.

J.

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU Traite des Arbres I755 (cont.) Volume u page 296 Tailpiece

I2

DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU Traite des Arbres (Nouveau DuhameQ I 804 Volume u The EM monogram from the title-page

13

I 804 Volume u One of the bindings by A. P. Bradel

15

I 8oo Volume I plate 6 Stuartia pentagyna drawn by P. J. Redoute

I6

I804 Volume u Dedication to 'Madame Bonaparte'

IS

I 8 I 5 Volume

plate I 5 ]uniperus communis and]. oxycedrus drawn by P. Bessa

I9

DUCQ A cluster of fir cones, drawn on page I4 ofJ. van Hueme's manuscript Collection du Regne vegetal about I 8oo

2I

L.

L.

F.

]. B.

VI

DUCHESNE Herbierjorestier I820 The royal binding

23

Sheet I2 A dried specimen of 'Betula alba Bouleau blanc', a silver birch

24

M. HOUTTUYN Houtkunde I791-95 Text page to go with Tabula u

J.

F.

26

Tabula II showing the wood of an acacia, a bastard acacia, black and green poplars, a wild rose, a red yew, and a currant

27

Engraved title-page: 'Icones Lignorum' in a wooden frame

28

English title-page dated I773

29

French title-page dated 1773

29

KORN Sammlung von 50 . .. Laubhblzer 1797 The engraved title-page

3o

Page 6 A maple and two elders

30

Bliitter-Abdriicke manuscript 1824 Page 21 Nature-printed leaves of a maple and other plants

3I

E. KENNION An Essay on Trees in Landscape I8I5 The label on the front cover

32

The title-page vignette showing an elm, an oak, and an ash

33

H. PHILLIPS Sylva Florifera I 823 Volume I pages 40-4I A description of the locust tree

(Robinia pseudoacacia)

35

J. H. JAUME SAINT-HILAIRE Traite des Arbresforestiers 1824 Frontispiece: H. L. Duhamel du Monceau drawn by Alexis Noel

36

J. c. LouD oN Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum I 838 Volume 1 pages xiii-xiv Signs indicating the size and habit of trees and shrubs X

38

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Volume I page xcii A contents page with signs indicating habit

39

Volume vn plate LVIII.E.a. Ulmus americana incisa. The cut-leaved American elm, drawn by H. Le Jeune in the garden of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick Volume vn plate LXI. A. Carya alba. The white Carya, or shell bark hickory nut, drawn by L. Martin at Purser's Cross Volume vn plate LXII. F. Salix alba. The white, or Huntingdon, willow, drawn by H. W Jukes on the common at Turnham Green

41

Volume vm plate LXIX. Y. Quercus rubra. The red-leaved, or champion, oak, drawn by 41

G. R. Lewis at Syon Volume vn plate LVI. B. Morus nigra. The black-fruited, or common, mulberry tree, drawn by H. Le Jeune in Loddiges' nursery garden at Hackney Volume n page 867 The leaves of American hawthoms M. s. MERIAN A tulip tree and two butterflies c. 1690 R. FURBER A tulip tree, a magnolia, and a silk cotton tree c. 1720

c. GRAY A Catalogue of American Trees and Shrubs 1737

so-si

M. CATESBY Hortus Europae Americanus 1767 Title-page

54

Plate facing page 19 Jove's beard, or the indigo tree, the smilax with red berries, the smilax with briony leaves, the bay-leaved smilax with black berries

55

H. MARSHALL Arbustrum Americanum 1785 Title-page

57

Dedication to Benjamin Franklin and the American Philosophical Society

58

H. MARSHALL Catalogue alphabetique des Arbres et Arbrisseaux 1788 Title-page

59

An advertisement for Marshall's seeds and plants

6o

A. MICHAUX Histoire des Chenes de l'Am&ique 1801 Page 8 A classification of American oaks Plate 19 Quercus aquatica, drawn by P. J. Redoute

61 62

F. A. MICHAUX Histoire des Arbresforestiers de l'Am&ique 1812 Volume 11 plate IO Chamaerops palmetto, the cabbage tree, drawn by Adele Riche Volume n plate 22 Nyssa aquatica, the tupelo, drawn by Adele Riche F. A. MICHAUX The North American Sylva 1819 Volume I A note about the English edition

67

Volume I pages iv-v An extract from the translator's preface X1

68

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS D.

J.

BROWNE

The Sylva Americana

I832

Page I 33 Hack Berry Page

I 56

Blue Ash

70

Page

307

Downy Lime Tree

70

Page

349

Tools for working with trees

70

J. Du c Ho u L De Vclria Quercus Historia I 55 5

Binding

72

Page 70 Beechmast and acorns

73

C. L. L'HERITIER DE BRUTELLE A. RIcH E Paulownia

I788

75

Title-page

imperialis

Salictum Wobumense

J. FORBES

Comus

77 I829

An inscription on the fly-leaf recording the Duke of Bedfor~'s gift of this copy to

]. C. Loudon

78

Plate facing page 5I Salix praecox, the early-flowering willow, drawn by R. C. Stratfold

w.

WITHERS

The Acacia Tree

79

I842

Binding, showing blind-stamped pattern

8I

An advertisement for Withers' Letter to Sir Waiter Scott

82

Virginias Discovery of Silke-Wormes

E. WILLIAMS

I650

Page I 4 A rack ofleaves and worms Page 74 The Saw-mill J. H. COBB

w. s.

A Manual ... of the Mulberry Tree

Plate I facing page 33 The life cycle of the silkworm

85

Page 59 A footnote about Daniel Webster's curtains

86

KENRICK JULIEN

The American Silk Grower's Guide

1839

Page 92 A Piedmontese reel

Resume des Principaux Traites Chinois sur la Culture des Muriers

1837

Title-page

88

Plate 3 Baskets to carry mulberry leaves and an instrument for chopping them

89

CONTE A. MINISCALCHI

J.

I83I

Mororum . ..

1769

Page 37 A mulberry branch and tools, drawn by D. Cignaroli

90

Title-page with a vignette of mulberry twigs

91

EVELYN

Syfva

1670

Title-page

94

Page 22 The 'German-devil', a contraption for removing stumps

96

X11

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

J.

Pomona page 66 The cider press recommended to the Royal Society by Robert Hooke

96

Page 76 Tapping the sap of the birch tree

97

and A. HUNTER Silva 1786 Volume I Frontispiece: John Evelyn drawn by Francesco Bartolozzi

98

EVELYN

Volume I plate facing page 175 White Beam Tree drawn by John Miller H. L. DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU

Plate

VI

Des Semis et Plantations des Arbres 1760

Packing and planting young trees

102-103

Plate XII Training trees and burning ground

104-105

Page 17 A dolphin tailpiece H. L. DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU

100

106

Du Transport, et de la force des bois 1767

Page 368 A flower tailpiece

107

Plate I Transporting wood by land and sea

108

DE KERGARIOU

Plan et Elevations d'une Machine Propre aTransporter de

Grands Arbres c. 1773

109

w.

HANBURY

A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening 1770 Volume I Title-page

Ill

w.

HANBURY

An Essay on Planting 1758 Title-page

I

w.

HANBURY

w.

w.

A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening 1770 Volume I plate v Calycanthus .fioridus Carolina allspice, engraved by John Lodge

113

Volume I plate m Compound leaves, engraved by John Lodge

114

Hot House designed for William Hanbury 1777 Section of the Fruiting House

II6

Section of the Succession Houses

117

EMES

A Treatise on Forest-Trees 1775 Title-page

II8

A Practical Treatise on Planting 1794 Dedication

121

BOUTCHER

s.

HA YES

J.

MEAD ER

w.

The Planter's Guide 1779 Deciduous trees and shrubs, engraved by John Lodge

122-123

Plate 2 Evergreen trees and shrubs, engraved by John Lodge

122-123

Plate

s.

HA YES

I

A Practical Treatise on Planting 1794

Plate I A cart for moving trees

124

Page 58 A vignette with trees and tools

125

NICOL

The Practical Planter 1799

The advertisement following the title-page

w.

12

PONTEY

126

The Forest Pruner 1805 Frontispiece: The Wobum Beech X1l1

128

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SIR HENRY STEUART

1828

Dedication to King George IV

130

Title-page

13 I

Plate m 'View of the Machine in Motion, and of a tree during transportation', drawn by William Turner

132

T. CRUICKSHANK

w.

The Planter's Guide

COBBETT

The Practical Planter

The Woodlands

1825-28

1830

Page 413 Catalogue of forest trees

An advertisement on the last leaf, offering

American tree and shrub seeds for sale

XIV

134

PREFACE

M

Y FIRST AWARENESS of the outside world, beyond the caring and loving hands that surrounded me, was of being very small near a bed of tall white phlox in my godmother's garden. This towering forest of scent and white flowers was the beginning of ceaseless interest, passion, and pleasure in gardens and books. Like a magic carpet it has carried me through life's experiences, discoveries, joys, and sorrows. In sadness especially, it has been a hiding-place until my heart mended. Beginning with infants' rag books of coloured pictures printed on coarse cloth, through all the books of early childhood, I was led on and on. I will never forget the illustrations and drawings of Beatrix Potter's greenhouses, flower-pots, and potting sheds, Kate Greenaway's verses and books, in which fruit trees full of apples and pears hang over pale brick walls, Boutet de Monvel's precise drawings with the music of French nursery rhymes written across pictures of bridges, tall, square, French houses, and trees planted in rows like soldiers. But of all these my favourite illustrator was H. Willebeek Le Mair. Her pictures in Songs of Childhood, Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, and other books were a young gardener's delightwalls, topiary trees, fruit arbours, sand dunes, and fields of wild flowers. Fairy tales followed, never to end, with illustrations including those of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac- Rackham's knarled oaks and apple trees, willows and windswept hills, and Dulac's medieval turrets where ladies embroidered and planted carnations, roses, and herbs as men battled in the distant landscape. Not satisfied with these books on the shelves of my room, there was a challenge to re-create and translate them into life. Beginning in our garden sand-box, then later in flat wooden boxes like large seed trays, I built miniature gardens using glue, paint, twigs, and whatever helped to simulate these enchanted pictures. Small plants lined my window-sill, and I gathered wild-flower seeds as if they were gold found in streams. My New Hampshire grandfather, to whose memory this book is dedicated, encouraged this enthusiasm, leading me through woods and up mountains, and taking me on trips to Concord, Massachusetts, to learn and study the world of Thoreau, Emerson, and Hawthorne. These memories are a small part of the beginning of the Oak Spring Garden Library. Years of continued curiosity have added botanical and horticultural studies, garden designs, drawings of plants, biographies of naturalists and explorers, accounts of their ships, their journeys, and their discoveries. Everyday books on gardening and related subjects have been collected over the years and now most of the great books as well have been added. XV

PREFACE

H. WlLLEBEEK LE

M A r R 's illustration of 'Little Jumping j oan' in Little Songs of Lortg Ago: More Old Nursery Rhymes, the original tunes harmonized by Alfred Moffat

(1912)

These reflections of a lifetime interest are kept in a whitewashed building made of local stone, a gift from my husband Paul. It stands in an open field, wild flowers grow where they will, apple trees are espaliered to the east and west. Inside, the sun casts long, bright shadows across the room on to the white stone walls. These books about the outdoors live not in dusty darkness but behind simple, pale oak doors, easily opened to the world they tell about. Two large glass doors create an opening twelve feet square in the long wall, framing an ancient hackberry whose lacy branches are caught up in witches' brooms. Beyond this is a rolling landscape of grass and corn fields, outlined in native trees: dogwoods, willows, maples, and ashes. I want to thank my dear friend and librarian, Dita Amory, and her assistant, Tony Willis. Without Dita's organization and constant supervision over the past eleven years it would have been impossible to reach the important goal of beginning to publish a catalogue. Books were scattered in many directions for lack of space, and it is because of her patience and courage, starting long before the library building was completed, that we were able to move in and arrange the shelves of books that form this collection. XVl

PREFACE

I am especially grateful to Sandra Raphael for accepting the encouragement of Niall Hobhouse and John Baskett to leave her work in Oxford to come to Oak Spring and stay for long periods to research and write this catalogue. Her superb knowledge of garden history has brought to life both people and gardens of the past, linking their common interest in different countries and centuries throughout the world. I appreciate her profound respect for accuracy that will benefit botanical and horticultural scholars in the future. A gardener herself, she has shared with affectionate interest the gardens of Oak Spring, bringing together the resources of the library with the everyday life of the farm. RACHEL LAMBERT MELLON

Oak Spring January I 989

~- HA' ES

A Praaical Tn•atise 011 Platlfll\\? 179~ page ); 5 A YJgnerre with

oak (wigs and rools

XVll

'!his page infenlionalfy left blank

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M

y EXPLO RA TI 0 N of the Oak Spring Garden Library began with an introduction from Niall Hobhouse, and during the growth of An Oak Spring Sylva his encouragement has been a constant help. John Saumarez Smith provided an early reaction to parts of the book and a short cut to the identification of the Chiswick House bookplate. He also read proofs and shared the pleasure of unexpected discoveries and a great deal of bookish talk. Among other friends in London, John Barr of the British Library and Dr Brent Elliott of the Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society, have been particularly useful. In Oxford the Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Science Library are the collections in which I feel most at home. The first of these libraries also shelters the headquarters of the British Academy's Dictionary of Medieval Latin. Its editors, Dr David Howlett and Dr Richard Sharpe, joined in the game of tracking down and translating the classical epigraphs, sometimes wrongly labelled, that were once considered an essential part of almost every botanical title-page. Jacques Paviot has also contributed occasional information from the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The design of An Oak Spring Sylva was begun by Stephen Harvard. After the sadness of his sudden death in the summer of 1988, when the text was only just set, Mark Argetsinger took his place. Without them the presentation of the Sylva in a form reflecting the nature of the Garden Library would not have been possible. The photographs for the book were taken by Greg Heins of Boston and drawings by Ian Stephens ofNorthampton (England) were used for the tulip-tree leaf on the front cover and the design of the endpapers. In giving thanks to all these friends, I am always grateful for Mrs Mellon's encouragement. Her interest in the books and their background made possible my exploration of her library, and many of the illustrations for An Oak Spring Sylva were chosen during the hours we spent together among the books. SANDRA RAPHAEL

Oxford March 1989

XIX

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INTRODUCTION The gods, to live in woods, have left the skies. Eclogues 11 translated by John Dryden, 1697

VIRGIL

AN 0 A K SPRING S Y LVA is the first of a series of descriptive catalogues of selections ~ of the rare books, manuscripts, and drawings in the Oak Spring Garden Library. It describes books about trees and shrubs, excluding those grown mainly for their fruit. Later volumes will deal with fruit, garden design and gardening, flowers, regional floras, voyages and travels, herbals and botany, each part describing some relevant manuscripts and drawings, as well as books printed before I 850, with occasional exceptions for particularly interesting books of a later date. Most entries begin with brief bibliographical descriptions, but the historical background of each book is also described, so that its identity is more than the technical details of its construction. Many of the books are especially beautiful, with plates by some of the greatest botanical artists, and many of them are copies with attractive associations, but the Oak Spring Library contains less obvious treasures too, from the earliest book on oaks (du Choul, I 555) to the eighteenth-century catalogues of Catesby and Marshall, which introduced a new world of North American trees to European gardens. A garden library in Virginia must surely remind its readers of the traffic in plants between England and the American settlements, for so many of the new trees and shrubs sent back to Europe were local natives. Early naturalists in America found immense forests with a much wider variety of trees than they were accustomed to see in Europe, hence their eagerness to transmit these botanical riches to their homelands. The books have been divided into groups according to their subjects, so that in some cases their relationships may be emphasized. Within each group the arrangement is roughly chronological. The first section of the Sylva concentrates on the general books, starting with the 1730 Catalogus Plantarum of the Society of Gardeners in London, a group of nurserymen who planned a joint catalogue of plants available in their gardens, though this sensible scheme foundered after the first section, on trees and shrubs, was published. The cost of the illustrations may have been too much for the work to be continued, but no plates were wasted, for some showing smaller plants were issued and bound with the tree catalogue. From trees in England the next books, Duhamel's Traite des Arbres (1755) and the Nouveau Duhamel (I8oO-I9) move to France to describe and illustrate in the grandest style the trees and shrubs able to be cultivated out of doors there. The second-generation Duhamel is another collaboration, a monument built by a XX1

INTRODUCTION

group oflater botanists on the foundation of the original book, with the splendid accompaniment of plates of each tree, shrub, and fruit by Pierre Joseph Redoute or Pancrace Bessa, engraved by a small army of lesser artists during the twenty years of the book's growth, fascicle by fascicle. The result has been admired ever since, though John Claudius Loudon, who produced a cheaper and much more accessible encyclopaedia of trees and shrubs grown in Britain in 1838, condemned its lavish style as 'publishing for the few'. Loudon's Arboretum, a plain book in a small format, is the last in the general section, following others on trees in Britain, France, the Low Countries, and Germany, among them a miniature herbarium of French trees.

J. C. L OUDON Arboretum et Fnllicetum Brit01micum 1838 volume 111 page 1741 English oak tree with deer, drawn by J. G. Strurt

American trees come next, beginning with Maria Sibylla Merian's drawing of a tulip tree, made not very long after this welcome immigrant had been introduced to England and Holland. The tree settled down well, but its propagation was not always easy, and Robert Furber, one of the nurserymen belonging to the Society of Gardeners, celebrated his success in producing healthy seedlings by publishing a boastful broadsheet about 1720, illustrating the tulip tree and two other rarities, all three flourishing in the garden of one of his noble customers. Mark Catesby is best known for his large Natural History of Carolina, in which he described and illustrated his own collections of animals and plants, but he also helped the introduction of North American plants to Europe, in association with the London nurseryman, Christopher Gray. He published a short account of them in 1763 and 1767, though Gray's broadsheet catalogue of American trees and shrubs, with an engraving of a flower of Magnolia grandiflora (blossoming in London XXll

INTRODUCTION

in I737) taking up the greater part of the sheet, was issued about thirty years earlier. Gray was another member of the Society of Gardeners, and his bilingual catalogue reflected the keen interest in American plants on both sides of the English Channel and in more distant parts of Europe too, for at that time French was the language of the educated world right across the continent. Humphry Marshall's American Grove of I785, a more generous and detailed catalogue than either Gray's or Catesby's, also appeared in French very soon after its first publication, and the slightly later botanical explorations of Andre Michaux and his son, Fran~ois Andre, led to the earliest full-scale description of all the North American trees then known, first in French in I 8 I o- I 3, then in English a few years later, both versions embellished with drawings by Redoute and others. So rich was the selection of American trees and shrubs sent to Europe by the late eighteenth century that Humphry Repton began to design 'American gardens' to accommodate them, using magnolias, rhododendrons, azaleas, tulip trees, liquidambars, and other desirable exotics. American oaks, described by the elder Michaux before he tackled all the continent's trees and shrubs, were also attractive to European landscape gardeners. The new trees made an obvious impression on the furnishing oflandscape gardens, but explorers like the Michaux were concerned with usefulness as well as appearance, and their descriptions often dwell on a tree's timber and its value for specific purposes. The Michaux Sylva was soon followed by several plainer and more prosaic accounts of North American trees and shrubs. From American trees the Oak Spring Sylva turns to books on individual genera or larger groups-oaks, L'Heritier's elegant account of a handful of dogwoods illustrated by the young Redoute, and the Duke of Bedford's nineteenth-century collection of willows at Wobum. Books from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century show the course of a series of attempts to establish the manufacture of silk in America, based on the cultivation of the silk-worms' favourite kind of mulberry tree. Early in the seventeenth century King James I encouraged the planting of mulberries in his own kingdom of Great Britain and also in the Virginian colonies. Later efforts to help the industry in America had brief periods of success, assisted by knowledgeable immigrants from France, Italy, and Germany, and the government's support for the dissemination of information on the subject. Less serious advice on mulberries is presented in an eighteenthcentury Latin poem by an Italian nobleman, beautifully printed in Verona and illustrated with delicate etchings showing the planting and training of the trees and the tools needed to care for them. The last part of the Oak Spring Sylva describes a series of books on planting and the care of trees, starting with John Evelyn's Sylva, first published in I 664 as the eventual result of the Royal Society's investigation into the supply of trees needed for the Navy's ships after the English Civil War. Successive editions of Evelyn's book added more and more appendices to a growing text, from a gardener's calendar to dissertations on cider and salads, and the late eighteenth-century XXl11

.PI.

F. t\. MICHAUX Histoire des Arbresforestiers de I'Amerique 1812 volume 11 plate 17 Acer striatum, moose wood or striped maple, drawn by H. J. Redoute. 'The name was given it by the first settlers, from observing tl1at the Moose ... subsisted, during the latter part of winter and the beginning of spring. upon its young twigs'

ACBR Sh-iaturu.

U/;;or/.

, () ./(;C),)t> 1

INTRODUCTION

version edited by Alexander Hunter added a handful of plates too, renewing the book's authority as a standard guide well into the following century. Duhamel's books on aspects of forestry formed an even more thorough manual for tree-planters in France in the middle years of the eighteenth century, and a 1773 manuscript gives precise details and plans of an improved type of wheeled scaffold for moving trees without damaging them. This problem worried gardeners on both sides of the English Channel, though quite large trees had been moved successfully as early as Le Notre's work at Versailles late in the seventeenth century. Various methods and apparatus are recommended in several of the books on planting, especially when instructions are being given for the creation of a. sort of instant landscape to please patrons without enough patience to wait for smaller seedlings to grow. The scale of these operations to furnish a new or a redesigned garden is made dear in the directions, which also, from Evelyn on, begin with advice on managing nursery gardens to provide the necessary stocks of young trees. William Hanbury's Complete Body of Planting and Gardening (1 76c_r73) had a philanthropical purpose as well as a horticultural one, for his own plantations and gardens were managed to raise funds for a group of parishes in Leicestershire, including his own, where the proceeds were used to support churches, schools, and other amenities. Hanbury was English enough, a fme example of an eccentric clergyman, but many of the other writers on planting were Scots, like Boutcher, Nicol, Steuart, and Cruickshank. This seems appropriate enough, given the vast numbers of trees planted on many of the larger Scottish estates during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Several Scottish nurserymen concentrated on propagating trees, especially when new conifers from western North America were imported in great quantities in the middle part of the nineteenth century. Many of the leading, working gardeners were Scots too, for that country seems to have sent a constant supply of well-trained botanists south into England and even further afield. John Claudius Loudon, whose books and periodicals educated so many English gardeners, was probably the most eminent of these expatriates. Walking among mature trees in settled landscapes, it is easy never to think of these gardens or woods in their infancy, before the trees reached their full size. At the end of their lives trees die or are felled and replaced, but the process is usually a gradual one that leaves the main pattern undisturbed. Only rare disasters like elm disease in Britain or chestnut blight in eastern North America blot out whole species, and even less often a hurricane as savage as the one that battered southern England and northern France on 16 October 1987 destroys hundreds of thousands of trees and changes the landscape overnight, even in urban parks. Against the force of such a storm the largest trees seem relatively fragile, when so many of them were ripped out of the ground. Whole woods were ruined, as well as specimen trees at Kew and the Chelsea Physic Garden, and entire landscapes in many other famous gardens. The wreckage was a reminder of the need for trees as essential elements of both urban and rural surroundings. Damage so severe will take many years to repair, and the new trees will need many more before they are mature enough to XXV

INTRODUCTION

fill the places of their predecessors, but they must be planted, to furnish the landscape for future generations. When plans must be made on this scale, the botanists and gardeners concerned will continue the tradition of earlier planters, constructing or refurbishing gardens they may never see at their best, in a way clearly reflected in so many books about trees.

H. L. OUHAMEL

Des Semis . .. 176o page 3 5 1 A palm and bay tailpiece

XXVI

DESCRIPTIVE METHOD

ACH DESCRIPTION of a book begins with a simple transcription of the title-page, keeping initial capitals when they are appropriate but ignoring other variations in type or size. Oddities in spelling or accents have also been kept, and only the most peculiar ones have been labelled sic, as tagging them all would have produced a very speckled text. Rules and decorations are mentioned and measured; a rule of unspecified length stretches right across the title-page. Variants on the title-pages of multi-volume works are indicated volume by volume, as briefly as possible. A collation follows, with bare details of the book's construction but no systematic analysis of its components, though occasional eccentricities are mentioned. Unnumbered preliminary pages before a sequence with Arabic figures have been given Roman numbers in italics, which also indicate any other figures that make an obvious part of a series but are not printed on the relevant page. Individual leaves of a gathering are designated A I, A2, and so on, or in the case of numerical signatures 20: I, 20:2, etcetera, using a colon to avoid possible confusion. Bindings are described briefly, with a record of inscriptions, bookplates, or any other indications of a book's provenance. Plates are also given a section to themselves in a description of an illustrated book, with details of artists and engravers, as well as any other relevant information. Then comes an account of the book's background and contents, varying in length from a paragraph or two to several pages, depending on the interest and complexity of the volume concerned. Manuscripts and single drawings are also given brief physical descriptions, followed by comments on their contents and background. No one working on historic books about plants and gardens should fail to be grateful for a handful of reference books that are constantly being used. Three in particular, Claus Nissen's Die botanische Buchillustration (I95I; second edition and supplement, I966), Blanche Henrey's British Botanical and Horticultural Literature before 18oo (r975), and the Catalogue of Botanical Books in the Collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt, compiled by Jane Quinby and Allan Stevenson (I 9 58-6 I) may be described as so essential that it is hard to imagine how our predecessors managed without them. Other occasional sources of information are mentioned in the text, but there is no collected list of them.

E

XXVll

'!his page infenlionalfy left blank

TREES

'!his page infenlionalfy left blank

1.

SOCIET Y OF GARDE NERS

Catalogus Plantarum, Turn Exoticarum rum Domesticarum, quae in Hortis haud procul a Londino Sitis in Vcnditionem propaganrur. Irule] A Catalogue of Trees, Shrubs, Plants, and Flowers, both Exotic and Domestic, Which are propagated for Sale, In the Gardens near London. Divided, according to their differem Degrees ofHardiness, into particular Books, or Parts; in each of wruch the Planes arc Ranged in an Alphabetical Order. [ruJej To which are added, The Characters of the Genus, and an Enumeration of all the particular Species wruch are at present to be found in the several Nurseries near London, with Directions for the proper Soil and Siruation, in which each particular Kind is found to Thrive. [rule] By a Society of Gardeners. [rule J Et nunc omnis agcr. nunc omnis parrurit arbos; Nunc frondem Silvae, nw1c formosissimus annus. Virg. Eel. 3 ['Some Trees their birth to bounteous Nature owe For some without the pains of Planting grow,' translated by John Dryden, 1 697] Irule; vignette 2 x 2.5 cm.; double rule] London: Printed in the Year M.DCC.XX X.

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59

Title-page

AMERICAN TREES

HE T RAN SLAT 0 R, Uzermes, confrrmed the interest in American plants among his countrymen: 'Le gout presque general pour les plantations, & l'utilite que doit necessairement procurer une connoissance plus etendue des Arbres & Arbrisseaux de 1~erique septentrionale, m'ont determine a dormer au public la traduction du Catalogue de M. Marshall. On y trouvera des especes nouvelles & vraiment interessantes' (page r). The translation was dedicated to 'Monsieur le Comte de la Billarderie d'Angiviller ... Gouverneur de Rambouillet' who, from 1774, was in charge of Louis XVI's buildings and gardens. He seems to have encouraged the planting of newly imported trees, according to the translator (pages v-vi):

T

Les obligations que le regne vegetal vous a en France, sont connues de tous ceux qui aiment, & qui cultivent la Botanique. C'est a vos soins que sont dues les nombreuses especes d'Arbres utiles & curieux dont elle s'enrichit chaquejour, & qui, transportes de l'Amerique Septentrionale, commencent a se multiplier, tant clans les Pepinieres du Roi, que clans les nouvelles Plantations de Rambouillet, & sous les yeux de Sa Majeste.

The translator also added a note to Marshall's offer to send batches of seeds and plants to buyers overseas: 'Nous savons que plusieurs Particuliers ont deja repleastd that a diff.....,t dhision bu btfl> adopted; it wasothtn"tse impossible to incn:aoc: the number of plates, as &be lowest price had been lis..:! upon the worled in Fr:ulce• an cl c.,. many, must soon command anenlion iu the· \Jnilt~ States. Though llu~e fourths of our soil arr still -.ikd from the eye oC d~y by prime'l':ll fore~•~ , th,· he>l ..,. tcr~ls for building are nearly ellhausted : with oil tht projected improvementJ in our int co·nal n••i>..,;iun , whence slWI we procure supplies of tionbouthernpn lt requires the ricl bring this treo to 1 Tho blue ash

exceeds 60 or 7 height and 18 or

Page 307 'Downy Lime Tree ... belongs to the southern parts of rhe United States and the Floridas'

in diameter. Its · from 12 to 18 in• and arc compose three or four pair with DU odd 01 lcanets ore large,

rLAT£ XlX.

oval-ocumioate, toothed and supported by short petioles.

Tho young

Tilia pubesCl'TI.

The Down. belongs to tho of the United Floridas. It ereoce on tb rivers and la where tbo SOl fertile, but ne inundation. 1 tiplied, and eo not taken noti inhabitants ; r. nod because species of its maritime part: rJ.A'rE xcv11. lions and of G Ftc. 1. A leor. 1·._. ~ The rrull. received no SJ inntion, and is simply called Lime Tru, to which "

author . . . has been anxious to render his work acceptable to the great body of American agriculturalists, whom he most ardently entreats to turn their attention to the delightful and important pursuit of Arboriculture. ' Browne himself was a farmer and a traveller, who studied agricultural development in the West lndies, Europe, and South America. In his own country he spent the years from 1853 to 1859 as Agricultural Clerk in the Patent Office, and he wrote several books on various aspects of farming. His Sylva was dedicated to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 'whose zealous and enlightened efforts have so greatly contributed to the advancement of horticulture in this country'. The Society, founded in r 829, established an experimental garden in 18 33, near Mount Auburn cemetery in Boston. Browne disclaimed any 'high originality', but 'consulted the most judicious ancient and modern works on the subject' to compile an account of individual trees and their wood, each description illustrated by a leaf and a fruit or seed. A short section on vegetable physiology begins the book. Among the authors listed in the note on his sources are Evelyn, Erasmus Darwin (Phytologia), Philip Miller (Gardeners Dictionary), Duhamel, Michaux, and Loudon. He even echoed Michaux's quotation from Pliny on his title-page. An expanded version of the Sylva, under the name of Trees of America, appeared in three or four editions from 1843 to 1857. Page 349 Tools for

a

b

working with rrees: a moor planter, a diamond dibble, a mattock, and a planter PL..\TC C\111.

70

INDIVIDU AL TREES

J. OU CHOUL De varia Quercus Historia ISSS Binding: actual size

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22.

DU C H OUL, Jean (jl.rsss-rs6s)

De Varia Quercus Historia. Accessit Pylati Monris descriptio. Authore lo. du Choul G.F. Lugdunensi. [crest 5· 5 x 4 cm.] Lugduni, Apud Gulielmum Rouillium. [rule 1.5 cm.] rs5s. 8°

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BINDING: Brown calf, gilt decoration on front and back within a blind-stamped border. PLATES: Pages 68 to 71 are ftlled with woodcuts of seeds and leaves of oaks, chesmuts, and other trees, and there are decorated initials and bands of printers' flowers at the start of each section.

73

Page 70 Beechmast and acorns

INDIVIDUAL TREES

J

EAN DU CH 0 U L, physician, naturalist, and philosopher, lived in Lyons, where his book was printed and published. It was his first production, and also the first to be devoted to oaks alone. In it he collected descriptions of the trees and their symbolic significance from classical authors and later writers, and illustrated them with a few woodcut figures. His description of Mont Pilat, a little south-west of Lyons, was interesting enough to be reprinted in the same year by the Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gesner, in his De Raris et Admirandis Herbis, which also mentioned Mont Pilat in the course of describing luminescent alpine plants and the growth of 'alpinism', that is, climbing for pleasure. Du Choul's account of the mountain was translated into French and reprinted in I 868 by Etienne Mulsant. A year after the book on oaks du Choul published a treatise on ants, flies, butterflies, and spiders, and in I 565 a Dialogue de la ville et des champs, with a supplementary Epistre de la sobre vie.

23. L'HERITIER DE BRUTELLE, Charles Louis (I746-18oo) Quai des Augustins. Londini, apud Petrum Elmsly, Vien-

Car. Lud. L'Heritier, Dom. de Brutelle, in Aula Juvam. Paris. Reg. Consil. Cornus. Specimen botanicum sistens descriptiones et icones specierum corni minus cognitarum. [five classical quotations about Cornus printed in parallel columns divided by a vertical rule 5 cm. long; see below for translations] Et saepe alterius ramos impune videmus Vertere in alterius, mutatamque insita mala Ferre pirum, et prunis lapidosa rubescere Coma. [rule 2 cm. JAt myrtus validis hastilibus, et bona bello Cornus: (Virg. Georg.) Apta fretis abies, bellis accommoda Cornus. [rule 2 cm. J Victum infelicem baccas, lapidosque Coma Dant rami. [rule 2 cm. J Conjecto sternit jaculo, volat Itala Cornus. (Virg . .tEneid.) [swelled rule 5 cm.] Parisiis, Typis Petri-Francisci Didot. Prostat [bracket 3. 5 cm.] Parisiis, apud [bracket r. 5 cm.] Ludovicum Nicolaum Prevost, Theophilum Barrois, [bracket r. 5 cm.] via quam vocant

nae, apud Rudolphum Graeffer, Argentorati, apud Amandum Koenig, [bracket 2 cm.] Bibliopolas. [rule 7 cm.] 1788. 1° 52 x 34 cm. 9 unsigned leaves of text numbered i-ii I-I 5 16 followed by 6 engravings in duplicate, the ones coloured by hand followed by uncoloured copies. BINDING: Bound with L'Heritier's Geraniologia (I78788) in tan morocco with gilt borders. PLATES: Three are by Pierre Joseph Redoute, three by Louis Freret (fl. 1787-1809). Both artists and all four engravers (Jacques Juillet did three plates, Pierre Maleuvre, Fran~ois Hubert, and Devisse one each) were also working on the author's larger book, Stirpes Novae [ 178 s-'91].

NLY A TITLE-PAGE of this huge size could take five quotations without looking crowded. The first two are from Virgil's Georgics n: ''Tis usual now, an Inmate Graff to see, with Insolence invade a Foreign Tree: Thus Pears and Quinces from the Crabtree come; And thus the ruddy Come! bears the Plum' and 'The War, from stubborn Myrtle, Shafts receivesFrom Comels, Jav'lins' as translated by John Dryden in I697. The other three are all said to come from the Aeneid, but the first of the trio belongs elsewhere, in Claudian De Rap tu Proserpin~ 11: 'There grows the pine, useful for seafaring, the comel-tree for weapons of war.' The other two are from the Aeneid Ill and IX, also translated by Dryden: 'Comels and salvage Berries of the

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PLANTING anonymous printer. Plates 1 to VII of volume 1 were engraved by John Lodge, though he copied two, the custard apple, Annona, and the strawberry tree, Arbutus, from Philip Miller's Figures of the Most Beautiful, Useful, and Uncommon Plants described in the Gardeners Dictionary

fruit and flowers, a gardener leaning on a spade, and a roller and watering-can, was drawn by Samuel Wale and engraved by Isaac Taylor. The eight unsigned engravings numbered II,IO, 17, 20, 8, 13, 14, 19, eachoneshowing three planes, are all duplicates of the ones in the Dicks book.

(1755-60).

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II,

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I LLIAM HANBURY, after his education at Oxford, became rector of Church Langton, a parish near Market Harborough, Leicestershire, in 1753. He used his interest in gardening for the benefit of his parishioners by establishing plantations and gardens on a large scale, using the proceeds of annual sales of the plants propagated to support the local church, its organist, the village schoolmaster, and other projects governed by the foundation's board of trustees. Hanbury's later schemes included plans for a public library, a picture gallery, and a new college at Oxford, but these ideas were not put into practice. The whole project was described in print in Hanbury's Essay on Planting, and a Scheme for making it conducive to the Glory of God and the Advantage of Society, published in Oxford in 1758,

AN

An Essay on Planting 1758 Title-page

E S S AY 0

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PLANTING, AND

A

SCHEME For making it c:onclucive to tbe

G L 0 R Y of G 0 D, AND

THE

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