A Treatise on the Culture of the Pineapple and the Management of the Hot-house. Together with a description of every species of insect that infest hot-houses, with effectual methods of destroying them [An original subscriber's copy]

Burlington House, London & Welbeck, Nottinghamshir: A. Ward for the author, 1779. First edition. With a folding engraved plate of insect pests, a folding engraved plan of a stove greenhouse (each with an un-numbered explanation), pp xviii, 186, extremely clean internally, full calf, a little worn and marked, with some abrasions leading to loss of surface, nevertheless still a good copy with presence. With the armorial bookplate on the front endpaper and the signature on the title page of Richard Cooper, one of the original subscribers. The rare first edition of a very important work. [The subscriber's list accounts for about 333 copies. It is a roll-call of the landed gentry and their gardeners, and shows the eagerness with which Speechly's expertise was desired in text. Blanche Henrey 1373 - "These works by Speechly were the most important on the culture of the pineapple and the vine published during the eighteenth century, and it may be said that they laid the foundation for the improvements which followed" . The pineapple had been grown for many decades in England, but it was Speechly, (1735 - 1819), who improved the design and structure of the houses. He discovered that the plants should not be kept at too hot a temperature in the winter and experimented with forcing pineapples in beds of oak leaves instead of the comparatively expensive and unpredictable tanner's bark. He worked for 34 years for the 3rd Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey in Northamptonshire.]. First Edition. Full Leather. Very Good.