Famous original edition, extremely rare in contemporary morocco leather.
Paris, 1753.
Duhamel Du Monceau, Henri-Louis. Treatise on the preservation of grains, and particularly wheat. By M. Duhamel du Monceau of the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, Inspector of the Navy in all the Ports & Harbors of France. With Copperplate Engravings.
Paris, Hippolyte-Louis Guerin & Louis-François Delatour, 1753.
In-12 of xxviii pp., 294 pp., 12 folding plates. Full red morocco leather, triple gilt fillet around the boards, smooth spine adorned, gilt fillet on the cuts, inner roulette, gilt edges. Binding in contemporary morocco leather.
165 x 98 mm.
Original edition adorned with 12 folding plates, extremely rare in contemporary morocco leather.
Work following the 1752 famine in which Du Monceau attempts to propose solutions for better preservation of wheat reserves during prosperous harvest years. These notably include better drying and cleaning of grains, and the aeration of large granaries with bellows.
From the beginning of his career, Duhamel was interested in trees, starting with fruit trees. He built up a collection in Vrigny, with many specimens from the nurseries of the Carthusian monks at the Château de Vauvert. His interest in improving production led him to focus on grafting, a technique that allows for the rapid multiplication of selected varieties. In his 1744 memoir on cuttings and layering, he concluded the existence of two saps, one ascending and the other descending.
With the exception of his research on saffron (1728), Henri-Louis’s work didn’t become truly agronomic until 1748, the date of the translation of Jethro Tull’s work, which Duhamel was tasked with overseeing. As was customary at the time, the translation was free, the author removing any development deemed superfluous, replacing the description of one machine with another considered more efficient… Thus was born from 1750 to 1761 the Treatise on Land Tillage, in six volumes, of which only the first two mention ” According to the principles of M. Tull, English ».
Tull, like Duhamel, noted the beneficial effects of tillering cereals to increase yields. He highlighted the importance of plowing to refine the soil and increase root contact; he tested at Pithiviers the methods of reducing seeding density. This was done in lines to be able to weed between rows, and Duhamel developed narrow seeders and plows to accomplish the task.
Duhamel integrated the results of his personal experiments conducted on his estate in Denainvilliers, which served as a genuine experimental agricultural station. Moreover, over the years, the Treatise on Land Tillage became a sort of journal publishing results of agricultural trials sent in by correspondents and deemed worthy of interest, thus anticipating the Agronomic Annals.
From 1762, he published The Elements of Agriculture in two volumes, in which he synthesizes the principles of the “new culture” developed in the Treatise on Land Tillage. Regarding plant nutrition, he focused on all kinds of residues and minerals, thus distinguishing himself from Jethro Tull, who only recommended the use of manure. Artificial meadows were studied as replacements for unproductive natural meadows.
Driven by a chain-of-production approach, Duhamel conducted numerous experiments on the conservation of cereals through forced mechanical ventilation, a technique he then deemed more useful than the mere drying proposed by Inthierri, and constructed various installations. In 1753, he published the Treatise on the Conservation of Grains ; the King asked him to present a model of his installation at Denainvilliers and awarded him a pension of 1,500 livres a few years later as a reward.
Ten years before the publications of Antoine Parmentier, and preceding Samuel Engel, he took an interest in the potato, describing the plant and its cultivation, thereby contributing to its popularity.
Of the greatest rarity in contemporary morocco leather.
