Extremely rare first edition of a small handbook on the cultivation of asparagus, which went through eleven editions over nearly a century. It is divided into 15 short chapters, treating subjects such as the origin of asparagus, preparation of the soil, planting and growing, etc. Two separate chapters, after the summary, are devoted to transport and to enemies of asparagus, such as insects and animals. Later editions appeared regularly from the second in 1853 to the eleventh in 1932, but we have traced only one other copy of the first edition, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
Although hardly a decade went by without a new edition of Loisel's handbook, and his similar 1854 Le melon was equally successful, the the book never gives his first name and he has been undeservedly forgotten. He was vice president of the Cercle Horticole de l'Eure (Normandy), member of the Société Centrale d'Horticulture de Paris, director of the gardens of the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre and "chef de culture du domaine" of the Aimé Marie Gaspar, Duc de Clermont-Tonnerre (1779-1865) at Glisolles (Normandy). In the preface he says there are plenty of other works on the same subject, but they are either inexact or too voluminous.
Foxed, but otherwise a very good copy. Rare first edition of a much reprinted but seldom seen treatise on asparagus. BN-OPALE plus (1 copy); this first edition not in Arnold Arberetum; BMC NH; Brunet; KVK; Pritzel; Vicaire; WorldCat.