A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Grape Vine on Open Walls
£203.00 GBP
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A week by week guide to training vines on open walls near Chichester, UK. With provenance
Hoare, Clement
A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Grape Vine on Open Walls
1841, London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
Third Edition
£203.00 GBP
Sale price
£203.00 GBP
Regular price
Overview
In 8vo. Pp. [1] f.e. [8], 210, [2], 32 (advertisement), [1] r.e.
Third edition of the practical manual that Clement Hoare turned into a twenty-acre experiment. The book grew out of years of pruning trials (near Chichester), which begun in the 1820s to find a method by which grapes might ripen reliably on unheated open walls rather than under the glass then considered necessary for English-grown fruit. Hoare was persuaded to publish his findings, by his own account decidedly against his wishes, by a fellow member of the Chichester Grape Society he had co-founded; John Claudius Loudon's enthusiastic notice in the "Gardener's Magazine" helped turn the book into a genuine success. This third edition was printed in July 1841, at the height of the ambition that success had bought Hoare. Three years earlier he had begun Shirley Vineyard on the edge of Southampton, a twenty-acre commercial attempt to prove his methods on an unprecedented scale. Three years later, borrowed money, adverse seasons, and an untested method of growing vines without soil brought the venture down in bankruptcy. This copy bears the armorial bookplate of Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855), theologian, scholar, and notable bibliophile. After Hare's death, a substantial portion of his celebrated library passed to Trinity College, Cambridge; a letter from his widow dated 4 March 1855 records a first consignment of some 4,000 books. Other volumes from Hare's library entered private hands, as surviving copies bearing his armorial bookplate attest. This volume evidently followed that path: an ink ownership inscription, "Tho.s R. Davis, 1857," places it in new hands only two years after Hare's death.
Inside the book
Sixteen chapters follow a systematic course from aspect, soil, manure, and wall construction through propagation, pruning, and training, closing with a descriptive catalogue of twelve grape varieties suited to open-wall culture. At its heart is Hoare's practical system: a serpentine method of training intended to check the too-rapid ascent of sap while maximizing fruiting wood; a year-by-year regimen for the vine's first five years; and a "Weekly Calendarial Register," guiding its management week by week from spring bud burst to autumn leaf fall, calibrated to a latitude of 50¾° north. A separate chapter proposes planting vines along the public thoroughfares of towns. Eight numbered woodcut diagrams illustrate the training methods throughout. Bound at the rear is a 32-page Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans catalogue dated February 1844. An identically bound copy of the third edition, containing the same catalogue, is preserved in the University of Southampton's Perkins Agricultural Library (BHL Title ID 97512), suggesting that at least part of the 1841 edition remained in the publisher's hands for later binding and sale.
Condition
Original publisher's cloth over boards, with blind-stamped decorative panels on both covers and gilt lettering and decoration at the spine. Some discoloration; spine edges chipped. Ink ownership inscription on the front pastedown, "Tho.s. R. Davis, 1857," and a separate armorial bookplate of Julius Charles Hare. Rear hinge partially cracked and water-stained, with a Japanese-paper repair at the free endpaper. Good.
Dimensions (inches): 9 x 5 3/4 x 3/4
Why La Fenice likes it
A decade of trial and error behind every diagram: a horse-tack maker turned Sussex schoolmaster spent years proving that English grapes could ripen without glass at all, then bet everything on a twenty-acre vineyard and went bankrupt trying. The vineyard failed, but Hoare earned his place in history, and even the great bibliophile Julius Charles Hare wanted his book on the shelf. This was his copy.
About the author
Clement Hoare (b. 1789), a Sussex schoolmaster trained as a horse-tack maker, wrote the era's standard manual on open-wall vine culture and put his methods to the test at the twenty-acre Shirley Vineyard near Southampton.
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