Jacques-Felix Lelievre's New Louisiana Gardender Hardcover - 2001

First line

My aim, in composing this work, is not to teach a course in agriculture.

From the jacket flap

Originally published in 1838, Nouveau Jardinier de la Louisiane, by Jacques-Felix Lelievre, was the first of only two books on Louisiana gardening to be written in the nineteenth century. The book drew upon the confident spirit of eighteenth-century Enlightenment France, forming a bridge from the writings of French horticulturalists to an American audience. Optimistic, ambitious, and progressive, the guide urged gardeners to manage nature by acclimating new species and constantly improving native ones through the application of innovative scientific techniques. Now available in English for the first time as Jacques-Felix Lelievre's "New Louisiana Gardener", this charming period piece and pathbreaking work can be enjoyed once again by gardening enthusiasts and historians alike.

At the heart of the book -- which closely mirrors the mind-set of nineteenth-century French horticultural science -- is a fundamental belief that the well-informed Louisiana gardener can overcome the problems of heat, humidity, weeds, insects, occasional cold, and primitive species by employing scientific methods of providing shade, water, and drainage; by technical pruning, manuring, and plowing; and through grafting, budding, and layering of better species onto native stock -- with the timing all regulated by the study of astronomy and an understanding of the movement of sap. More European than Old South, Lelievre's techniques were perhaps better suited to France than Louisiana, but modern horticulturalists can still learn from the upbeat spirit of overcoming obstacles that pervades Lelievre's guide.

An introduction by Sally Kittredge Reeves gives historical context to the translation that follows, detailingthe author's reasons for coming to America and his struggles to make a new life, his employment at and eventual ownership of a bookstore in New Orleans, and his reasons for compiling the Nouveau Jardinier and publishing it in Francophile New Orleans. Reeves's discussion of the New Orleans publishing world offers telling details about book production and bookselling at the time.

Written over 150 years ago, Jacques-Felix Lelievre's "New Louisiana Gardener" offers today's gardener a refreshing connection with other gardening enthusiasts across time. Here, in this delightful historical gem, modern cultivators can escape their fertilizers and tillers and rediscover for a moment the joy of facing Mother Nature with little more than a well-educated pruning knife and a hoe.

Media reviews

Citations

• New York Times, 06/03/2001, Page 8