Cookery and gardening are fast becoming my new favorite topics. Camp cookery, kitchen cookery, garden cookery, etc. so long as it is mid-19th Century or at least, eccentric.
New titles to grace my shelves:
The Gardener's Text-Book containing Formation and Management of The Kitchen Garden, by Peter Adam Schenck, formerly Gardener to Edward C.Williams, Esq. New York, Orange Judd & Co., 1851
First Principles of Household Management and Cookery, by Maria Parloa. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1879/1884
Home Dissertations: An Offering To The Household For Practical Skill In Cookery, compiled and edited by Mrs. E. Stevens Tilton. H. Jevene, Grocer, Publisher, California, 1891
Camp Cookery: How To Live In Camp, Maria Parloa. Estes &Co, Boston, 1878
Farm Gardening And Seed-Growing, by Francis Brill, Orange Judd &Co., 1872
The Complete Farmer And Rural Economist, by Thomas Fessenden, Boston & Philadelphia, 1840
Willard's Practical Butter Book, Rural Pub Co, New York, 1875
The American Farmer's Instructor or Practical Agriculturist, by Francis Wiggins, Philadelphia, 1844
The Profitable Planter: A Treatife On The Theory And Practice Of Planting Forest Trees by W. Pontey, Ornamental Gardner. London, 1808 (ok, so he's British).
A few titles had to be upgraded but I'll excuse myself.
Also found are a bunch of titles on fret work, wood carving, kite making, bird houses, etc. I figure on three or four more trunk loads of boxes of books to go out to the local book store and I should have winnowed out what I don't want. What I do want is going into Staples cardboard storage boxes, stacked three to a shelf on metal shelving, five shelves per wheeled unit. The really nice stuff stays put in my "study". The rest gets boxed for now.
Once I'm done, each box gets pulled, the contents reviewed, cataloged and if necessary, those books that don't make the second cut get sent out to the friendly neighborhood bookshop or the public library donation bin.
Then there are the new and old tools...
Till next, Gary
