Author: PONTEY (William):
Title: The Profitable Planter. A Treatise on the Cultivation of Larch Scotch Fir Timber: showing that Their Excellent Quality (Especially that of the former) will Render Them so Extensively Useful, as greatly to promote the Interest of th Country. With Directions for Planting, in various soils and situation by a New and Expeditious Method; also, for the management of plantations. To which are added, Useful Hints, in regard to Shelter and Ornament.
Description: Huddersfield: Printed for the Author, By Sikes and Smart; and sold by Vernor and Hood London..., [no ]date] [1796] FIRST EDITION. Large 8vo (in 4s), pp. 96, engraved plate of axes as frontispiece, uncut, original wrappers, with title in ink on front cover; some minor wear to extremities, but a very good copy. The Critical Review noticed the work in 1800: "The author's great objects are to show, that the English firs, in suitable soils, with proper management, are as useful as those of Norway, and will produced timber of very considerable scantlings; and also that larch is highly valuable as a timber tree, adapted not only to useful but ornamental purposes. The specimen of larch timber, transmitted with the work, is indeed beautiful and seems to possess the smoothness and toughness of beech, with a better hue and more varied veins...." ESTC locates 8 copies in UK libraries (4 in Oxford libraries) and six in United State libraries. None of these seem to have the "specimen of larch timber" alluded to in the review. ESTC dates the work as 1800 (based on the engraved plate), but the paper is watermarked 1796 and 1797.

Keywords: agriculture trees prose


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