A treatise on the culture of the vine, and the art of making wine; compiled from the works of Chaptal, and other French writers; and from the notes of the compiler, during a residence in some of the W

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Limited edition

Australia [i.e. Sydney], R. Howe, Government Printer, 1825 (but Sydney : David Ell Press, 1979). Facsimile edition. Octavo, gilt-lettered buckram, [pp. i ii], pp. [iii] xxxiv, 270 (actually 272, as the pagination 183 184 is duplicated), [1 errata], [1 blank], with one folding table (designated pp. 62-63, inserted after p. 64, as per Ferguson); very faint hint of foxing to edges and endpapers, a very good copy. Facsimile of the first edition of the first Australian book on wine. Regarded as the father of the Australian wine industry, James Busby arrived in Sydney from Scotland with his family in 1824. ‘As soon as Busby learned that his father would be moving to Sidney he “was induced to spend some months in the best wine districts of France, with a view of acquainting myself with the cultivation of the vine for the making of wine, and having the power to ascertain to what extent it might be profitably cultivated in New South Wales.” Busby wrote part of his treatise while en route to Australia, and within a year of his arrival, he published A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine, and the Art of Making Wine ’ (Gabler, Wine into words , 47). Busby was appointed teacher of viticulture at the Male Orphans School at Bald Hills near Liverpool, and was granted 2000 acres of land. Following a trip to Europe in 1828 he brought back to Australia 678 varieties of vines, of which 362 were successfully grown in the Botanic Gardens of Sydney. It was those vines which were to propagate the vin

• Binding: Hardcover

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