A Treatise on Forest-Trees: containing Not only the best Methods of their Culture hitherto practised, but a variety of new and useful Discoveries, the result of many repeated experiments: as also Plain Directions for removing most of the valuable kinds of Forest-Trees, to the height of thirty feet and upwards, with certain success; and On the same principles, (with as certain success) for transplanting Hedges of sundry kinds, which will at once resist Cattle: to which are added, Directions for the Disposition, Planting, and Culture of Hedges, by observing which, they will be handsomer and stronger Fences in five years, than they now usually are in ten. By William Boutcher, Nurseryman, At Comely-Garden, Edinburgh
Edinburgh: R. Fleming for the Author and J. Murray, 1775. First edition.
Quarto (11” x 8 13/16”, 280mm x 224mm): π2 a-f4 A-Kk4 [$2 signed]. 158 leaves, pp. 1-3 4 (title, copyright, 2pp. dedication), i ii-xlviii (26pp. preface, 17pp. subscribers, blank, fly-title, blank, 2pp. contents), 21 22-259, [5] (blank, 3pp. post-script, blank).
Bound in the publisher’s blue drab boards, (re-)backed in beige tape. On the spine, a printed paper label with the title and the author.
Re-backed to style. Paper losses to the spine-edge of the boards. Some wear and cracking to the fore-corners. Price (“15/.”) in ink to the front board. With a loss to the upper edge of the first free end-paper. Fore and lower edges of the text-block untrimmed. Armorial bookplate of Robert Mascall to the front paste-down. Signed by the author to the copyright-page (π1v).
William Boutcher (fl. 1734–1781) was an active nurseryman and gardener, working with some of the great Scottish landowners and horticulturalists. The Treatise on Forest-Trees is a work born of real experience in the cultivation and maintenance of forests and hedges; Henrey calls it the best arboricultural book of its century. Arboreta and pineta were a great rage in the stately homes of Britain in the Georgian and Regency periods; available only to those with considerable estates, carefully managed forests of prized specimens were ornaments of erudition surpassing a landscaped pleasure-park. Boutcher’s work is particularly Scottish; it is dedicated to the third Duke of Buccleugh, and the (vast) list of subscribers contains nearly all the grandees of Scotland, and many nursery-men besides.
Boutcher transmits the sort of philosophical wisdom born of working with mighty trees: “I must lay it down as a principle, that some small degree of learning at least is necessary to make a good gardener…” and “every body knows the best cook cannot furnish out of a handsome table without the assistance of a good gardener; and perhaps there is as much judgment required in raising materials of the best quality, as in dressing them well” both find themselves on p. vii.
Though the bibliographies do not point it out, the book in its present form (a subscriber’s copy?) as issued should be signed; the copyright (π1v, p. 2) reads “Entered in Stationers-Hall,/ And each genuine Copy is signed by” followed by “Will: Boutcher” signed. Are there multiple states? Nevertheless, the present copy is distinguished by its untrimmed text-block and publisher’s boards.
The bookplate, based on the arms (a barry of eight argent and or, three inescutcheons erminois) and crest (a sea-lion) and the date of the book, is almost certainly that of Robert Mascall of Peasmarsh (1762–1815) in Rother, East Sussex. As a relatively substantial land-owner, the present work will have been useful as well as interesting.
Purchased at the Hindman sale (9 November 2021, lot 80) dispersing the material of Dr. Eugene Vigil, founding proprietor of Antiquariat Botanicum, one of the great American botanical bookshops.
Cleveland Collections, 521; Henrey 476; Raphael, An Oak Spring Sylva 117-120.
Item #JLR0288
Price: $1,800