A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit-Trees; in which a new method of pruning and training is fully described.

In original boards

First edition. Forsyth (1737-1804), for whom the forsythia was named, was superintendent of the royal gardens at St. James and Kensington. The Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries of Fruit and Forest Trees had been separately published in 1791. The "particular method of cure" was a "plaister", or paste, whose application would, Forsyth asserted, cause new wood to grow and bind to the old. His invention had come to the attention of the authorities charged with procurement of sound wood for naval use, and after preliminary investigation he was paid 1500 to reveal the composition of this mixture. The success of the work was immediate, and it reached seven editions by 1824, though an attack by Thomas Knight in 1802 on Forsyth's paste, which Knight asserted was neither new nor effective, led to a long and bitter debate which severely damaged Forsyth's reputation.