SERRES, Olivier de.   LE THEATRE D'AGRICULTURE ET MESNAGE DES CHAMPS.   Icy est representé tout ce qui est requis & necessaire pour bien Dresser, Gouverner, Enrichir & Embellir La Maison Rustique.       Rouen: Chez Clement Malassis,   1663.          Oliver de Serres is often referred to as the "father of French agriculture," a status earned for him almost entirely by the enormous success of this book. First published in 1600, it was continuously reprinted throughout the seventeenth century and became the universal guide to agricultural practice during most of that time. It is a thick book which tries to be all-inclusive regarding the subject matters that would interest the owner of a rural estate. It begins with advice on the choice of property and ends with advice on hunting wolves, while in the intervening pages subjects such as plowing, harvesting, growing and using herbs, viticulture and wine making, livestock, bee-keeping, fish ponds, poultry, silk worms, fruit trees, parterres and flower gardens, forestry and water management, medicine, etc. are all treated in detail. The instructions he gave derived largely from de Serres' practical experience at his own estate, Pradel, located in the Languedoc. Though forming only a very small portion of the overall text, the section on garden design is of great interest. On a trip to Paris undertaken shortly before the publication of his book De Serres met Claude Mollet and visited the Tuileries, Saint-Germaine-en-Laye, and Fontainebleau. He copied from those gardens the designs for parterres which are included here. This edition, like many of the later provincial editions, was issued without a folding plate that appears in the original Paris editions. In our copy we have also included, as a loose insertion, an example of this plate which had been salvaged from another defective copy of the book.   4to (23 x 16 cm); xiv + 908 + (27) pp. with 15 wood-engraved text illustrations.            Contemporary full leather with raised bands and gilt panels on spine, expert restorations (barely noticeable) on spine and corners. Extensive early ink annotation of end sheets and blank verso of final leaf of preface (with some bleed through); frequent ink underlining in chapter on medicinal plants, and occasionally elsewhere; scattered light foxing or soiling; damp stain in gutter of first 100 and (intermittently) last 50 pages. Additional folding plate loosely inserted; this plate repaired at fold, with some loss. $1,000.00

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