OP: The Small Fruits of New York

J. B. Lyon Company, Albany, 1925. Hardcover. Near Fine.

In 1905, the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station launched a remarkable and invaluable series of books, recording the historical, scientific, cultural, and economic impact of the fruits of New York, beginning with the two-volume The Apples of New York written by horticulturalist Spencer Ambrose Beach (1860–1922).

The six following books in the series were put together by fellow botanist Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick (1870–1951), covering grapes (1908), plums (1911), cherries (1915), peaches (1917), pears (1921), and small fruits (1925).  All of them are prized for not only their wealth of information but also for—and by some scoundrels who cut the books apart only for—their color plate inserts, produced by Zeese-Wilkinson Company. 

If you can draw your eyes away from the hypnotically stunning prints, you will be compensated with a sensational number of fruit cultivars you probably haven’t heard of. In fact, the one type of raspberry, blackberry, and strawberry available at the supermarket will quickly feel disappointingly insufficient when you realize you’re missing out on varietals like Belle de Fontenay, Success, and Crimson Cluster, respectively.

And that’s not even to mention the dewbarries, currants, and gooseberries also described within.

Between the sheer size of these books (9.5” x 12.25”, 614 pages, in this case) and the common occurrence of print removal for individual sale, it is rare to see a volume in such excellent shape as this. We would describe our copy as Near Fine, with the exception that a small section including 5 prints and six pages is nearly detached. Otherwise, excellent, and all 94 prints are present.