Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers. Avec un Traité des orangers, et des réflexions sur l'agriculture. Nouvelle édition revüe, corrigée, et augmentée d'une instruction pour la culture des fleurs.

2 vols, 4to: [8]-xlviii-[8]-591-[1], [12]-587-[29] pp.; 13 pls incl. 2 fold. (ll. sl. browned, some spots).

Contemp. marbled calf, gilt tooled spines with raised bands and red leather labels, red edges (worn, rubbed especially hinges and cuts, dulled corners).

New revised and enlarged ed. (1st ed., posthumous: 1690) of this famous manual of horticulture, often republished, gathering the experience and thoughts of La Quintinie (1626-1688) in particular methods of enhancing vegetables and size of fruit trees, outdoor cultivation of orange trees, acclimatisation of fig trees, etc. Complete with 8 head-pieces (depicting various gardening works, 1 signed Scottin), 1 groundpruningplan of the "potager du Roi" in Versailles and 12 pl. depicting prunning instruments, lopping of fruit-trees, etc. Some woodcuts in the text. Long poem in honor of La Quintinie by Charles Perrault at the beginning and treatises - a.o. by Venette - on fruit trees, flowers, melon cultivation... La Quintinie, former horticulturalist of Nicolas Fouquet for whom he realized the vegetable garden of Vaux-le-Vicomte, was named at the behest of Louis XIV Director of the vegetable and fruit gardens of the Royal houses. At Versailles he created the kitchen garden and oversaw the plantations. Ref. Pritzel 507 - Livres de fruits du 16e au 20e s. [Exhibition cat.]. Namur, Plantin, 1992, p. 51. - Not in Nissen, Plesch, Hunt.