The Tree-Lifter; or, a New method of Transplanting Forest Trees de Greenwood, Colonel George - 1876

London: Longmans Green & Co., 1876. Third edition. Illustrated with a stunning tinted lithograph frontispiece, two folding plates of ring growth, octavo, pp x, 235 + 24 page publisher's catalogue, edges uncut, slight age-toning but otherwise very clean internally, the front hi nge is slightly weak and is exposed for about 40mm at the top, original green cloth with only slight signs of wear, the spine head slightly pulled. [A work that seems little-known as, indeed, is the author within horticultural circles. Greenwood had an estate in Hampshire, at Brookwood [Brockwood] House near Bramdean. The tree-lifter was the Colonel’s invention for transplanting trees up to 30 feet in height with their ball of earth intact, a feat the apparatus apparently made possible for a single individual to do at a rate of one tree per day. The somewhat aptly-named Colonel Greenwood was very enthusiastic about the importance of trees to the landscape and the first edition was published in 1844. Colonel Greenwood is said to have excavated local archaeological sites and was a keen geologist referred to as ‘the father of subaerialism’, ascribing the greater inequalities in the earth’s surface to atmospheric influences. He published a further book in 1857 entitled Rain and Rivers. His main thesis was the supremacy of rainwash as an agent of land sculpture and the realtive unimportance of streams and rivers. It was said in his obituary that 'had he fallen amongst geologists in early life, instead of amongst ‘thoroughbreds’, he would doubtless have occupied a leading place among men of science'. He does not appear in Hadfield's History of British Gardening nor, more surprisingly, in Desmond's Dictionary.]. Third edition. Cloth. Good.