Three Year's Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China, a Visit to the Tea, Silk and Cotton Countries with an Account of the Agriculture and Horticulture of the Chinese, New Plants, etc

8vo [21.5 x 14 cm]; xvi, 406, [i] pp, tinted frontis, extra title page with vignette of Chinese wedding, 15 other illustrations including map and plates. original pictorial wraps, cover slightly rubbed at edge, but clean and near fine. A picture of this book is available upon request by email. Fortune was the first plant collector to travel in China after the conclusion of the Opium War, as a botanical collector for the Horticultural Society of London starting in 1843. Travel was not allowed for more than 30 miles past Shanghai, but undaunted "he set off by boat from Shanghai, in Chinese costume complete with shaved head and pigtail" (see Coats p. 101-110 for details), and was the first westerner to reach Soochow and many other parts of China, collecting large numbers of plants and seeds. The book contains two chapters on the cultivation and manufacture of tea with suggestions on the possibilities of developing a tea industry in India, and contained new knowledge about the production and processing of tea. In fact, this book and his later books and plant collecting (as an employee of the East India Company) lead to the Indian tea industry. As a result of the travels described here he found numerous new plants including anemones, chrysanthemums, jasmine, forsythia, honeysuckle, etc. Besides plants and horticulture, the author also describes the people and geography. This was his first book. Cordier p. 2115. Massachusetts Horticultural Society Catalogue p. 102. This is a nice production reprinting the first edition, which is very scarce.