Saturday, January 12, 2019

Gardening Books in Early America - Owned by Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790


Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Pennsylvania printer, author, inventor, ambassador, scientist, statesman, abolitionist. Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a founder of the Library Company of Philadelphia and of the first fire department in Pennsylvania, among many other accomplishments.
Benjamin Franklin by David Martin (Scot artist, 1737-1797)  1766

Franklin's extensive library is documented in Edwin Wolf 2nd and Kevin J. Hayes, The Library of Benjamin Franklin. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society and Library Company of Philadelphia, 2006. 

Title: An heroic epistle to Sir William Chambers, knight ... author of a late Dissertation on oriental gardening. Enriched with explanatory notes, chiefly extracted from that elaborate performance
Author: William Mason
Info: London, J. Almon, 1773. 11th ed.

Title: The gardeners dictionary. Containing, the methods of cultivating and improving the kitchen, fruit and flower garden, as also, the physick garden, wilderness, conservatory, and vineyard; according to the practice of the most experienced gardeners of the present age
Author: Philip Miller

Title: A treatise on cyder-making, founded on long practice and experience; with a catalogue of cyder-apples of character, in Herefordshire and Devonshire, their different qualities and applications in making either mellow or rough cyder; and the whole process of cyder-making throughout. With instructions for meliorating cyder, preservatives, and remedies for preventing and curing the diseases incident to cyder. To which is prefixed, A dissertation on cyder and cyder-fruit
Author: Hugh Stafford
Info: London, E. Cave, 1753.

Title: Stowe, the gardens of the Right Honourable Richard Lord Viscount Cobham : address'd to Mr. Pope
Author: Gilbert West
Info: London : Printed for W. Russel, 1756.

Title: The universal gardener and botanist or, a general dictionary of gardening and botany. Exhibiting in botanical arrangement, according to the Linnæan system, every tree, shrub, and herbaceous plant
Author: John Abercrombie
Other authors: Thomas Mawe (Contributor)
Info: London : printed for G. Robinson; and T. Cadell, 1778.

Title: A new and complete system of practical husbandry containing all that experience has proved to be most useful in farming, either in the old or new method; with a comparative view of both; and whatever is beneficial to the husbandman, or conducive to the ornament and improvement of the country gentleman's estate
Author: John Mills
Info: London : printed for R. Baldwin, W. Johnston, S. Crowder, T. Longman, J. Coote [and 3 others in London], 1762-65.

Title: The complete English farmer, or a practical system of husbandry founded upon natural, certain, and obvious principles : in which is comprized a general view of the whole art of agriculture, exhibiting the different effects of cultivating land according to the usage of the old and new husbandry 
Author: David Henry
Info: London : printed for F. Newberry, 1771.

Title: The farmer's director or, a compendium of English husbandry. Concisely describing the management of land, and cultivating the several kinds of corn and pulse. Of grasses and plants for the food of cattle, and their several feeding qualities. Of meadows and pastures, and a new system of applying the grass-lands of a farm. With various improvements interspersed through the work. Also an appendix. Containing general observations and directions on various subjects of husbandry. 
Author: Thomas Bowden
Info: London : printed for Richardson and Urquhart, at the Royal Exchange, MDCCLXXVI. [1776]

Title:  Hortus botanicus vindobonensis, seu Plantarum rariorum, quae in Horto botanico vindobonensi ... coluntur, icones coloratæ et succinetæ descriptiones 
Author: Freiherr Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin 

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