LA QUINTINIE (Jean de): Le Parfait jardinier ou instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers. Avec un Traité des Orangers, suivi de Reflexions sur L'agriculture. Paris: Claude Barbin, 1695. - 2 volumes in-4, brown basane, ornate ribbed spine, speckled edges (period binding). Second edition, partly original, of the major work by Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie (1626-1688), French lawyer, gardener and agronomist, famous for having created the King's Kitchen Garden at Versailles. First published in 1690 under the title "Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers, avec un Traité des orangers, suivi de quelques Réflexions sur l'Agriculture", this work is one of the first major modern agronomic treatises, in which the author shares his knowledge of the cultivation of early crops and the pruning of fruit trees. This edition, dedicated to the King, begins with a long poem in Latin by Jean-Baptiste Santeul, followed by a poem in French by Charles Perrault. It also includes, in its original edition, the "Nouvelle instruction pour la culture des fleurs. Containing the manner of cultivating them, as well as the work to be done each month of the year according to their different species, accompanied by a catalog of the most beautiful and rarest flowers". This text is found at the end of the second volume, with its own title page and separate pagination. The illustrations include a portrait of La Quintinie after Florent Richard de Lamarre, 9 handsome historiated bands, 7 woodcuts in the text, and 13 plates. The engravings of the headbands are reversed from those of the 1690 edition. A copy in a damaged contemporary binding with missing headbands. Corners dulled, some spotting. Very good condition inside. The margins of the plates between pages 24-25 and 162-163 in the second volume have been cut.