THE MANNER OF RAISING, ORDERING AND IMPROVING FOREST AND FRUIT TREES. A LSO : A DISCOVERY OF SUBTERRANEAN TREASURE BY GABRIEL PLATTES.

London, printed for Peter Parker at the Leg and Star over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, 1679.. TITLE CONTINUED: also, how to plant, make and keep vvoods, vvalks, avenues, lawns, hedges, &c. With several figures in copper-plates, proper for the same. Also rules and tables shewing how the ingenious planter may measure superficial figures, with rules how to divide woods or land, and how to measure timber and other solid bodies, either by arithmetick or geometry, shewing the use of that most excellent line, the line of numbers, by several new examples; with many other rules, useful for most men. By Moses Cook, gardiner to that great encourager of planting, the Right Honourable, the Earl of Essex. Whereunto is now added, that ingenious treatise of Mr. Gabriel Plattes, viz. A Discovery of Subterranean Treasure. SECOND EDITION IN TWO PARTS,1679. A reissue of the 1676 edition with a cancel title page and the addition of A Discovery of Subterranean Treasure: with its owne title page (viz). Of all manner of Mines and Mineralls, from the Gold to the Coal, with plain Directions and Rules for the Finding of them in all Kingdoms and Countries. Small 4to, approximately 190 x 150 mm, 8½ x 6 inches. THE FIRST PART, The Manner of Raising etc. 4 copper engraved plates at rear, pages: [16], 1-204, [4] - Contents and last page an advert for books on Husbandry. Outer margin of title page slightly ragged, small ink spot and "2d edit" in ink, tiny repair to inner margin of page 4, minor silked repairs to page 5 with loss of 6 words to recto and 2 to verso, now with amateur inking in, pale staining to plates, 4 pages with neat ink marginalia, occasional small spot or stain, advice on raising and ordering of the Walnutt in an early ink hand on first free endpaper, on following blank the contemporary ink inscription: Joh. Fulham, address ........London and date, May 25th -69. PART 2, Subterranean Treasure, pages: [4], 1-24, tiny repair to outer margin of page 4, pale staining to page 1-end, old ink note to lower margin of final page. Bound in original sheep, rebacked at sometime with matching plain spine. Binding rubbed and scuffed, leather crinkled, front pastedown missing, engraved bookplate of William Charles Meuron, Earl Fitzwilliam and ink shelf numbers to inside of front board, pale age-browning to endpapers. A very good copy. John Evelyn mentions Moses Cooke's skills as a gardener in his Diary after a visit to the Earl of Essex house of Cassioberie in Hartfordshire in 1680. He praised the gardens saying "cannot be otherwise, having so skillfull an artist to governe them as Mr Cooke". Moses Cook mentions Evelyn on page 49. Stephen Switzer in his book The Practical Husbandman and Planter states: "Cooke's is indeed an excellent book and one that has done more good in the nursery and forest way than any other that I know of." See: Blanche Henrey, British Botanical and Horticultural Literature, Volume 1, page 235, No. 39, also pages 116-118 and 181; ESTC R2565. MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE, FURTHER IMAGES ON REQUEST. POSTAGE AT COST.