Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1790-1820

Description

Thomas Baldwin was a gardener and a member of the Horticultural Society, London. In 1805 he became gardener at Ragley Hall, in Warwickshire, England, the family estate of Richard Seymour-Conway, Marquess of Hertford (1800-1870). Baldwin was the author of Short practical directions for the culture of the ananas or pine apple plant, published in 1818. As a gardener to the aristocracy, Baldwin was inevitably engaged in the difficult cultivation of exotic pineapples, a fruit that fascinated Anglo-America during the eighteenth century. Hostesses featured the fruit at parties, but only the wealthy actually consumed it. Others rented a pineapple, purely for display.

This item consists of a copy of Adam Taylor's A treatise on the ananas or pine-apple, published in 1769, with an ownership inscription and brief annotations by Thomas Baldwin, 1777, bound with approximately 100 pages of notes that Baldwin made from 1790 to 1820. Most of the notes concern the cultivation of pineapples and other fruits, some with references to other gardeners or authors, but there are also recipes for food and medicines.