SIEUVE (Lazare). - Lot 55

SIEUVE (Lazare). Mémoire et journal d'observations et d'expériences Sur les moyens de garantir les Olives de la piquure (sic) des Insectes. Nouvelle Méthode pour en extraire une huile abondante & plus fine, par l'invention d'un Moulin domestique, avec la maniere de la garantir de toute rancissure. Paris: imprimerie de Michel Lambert, 1769. -In-8, 206x136: (2 ff.), 126 pp., (1 f.), 3 plates. Bradel-style ivory half-parchment, smooth spine, untrimmed (19th-century binding). Uncommon first edition of this memoir presented to the Académie des Sciences de Paris on January 21, 1769, written by Marseilles merchant Lazare Sieuve. It is divided into three parts. In the first, the author describes the different natures and species of olives, the diseases that can affect them and how to prevent them. In the second, he discusses how olives should be crushed to extract the perfect oil, and how to preserve it over the long term. Finally, he devotes the last part of his work to presenting and describing the domestic mill of his invention, capable, by its mechanism, of detritating the olive, detaching the flesh from the stone without crushing it, and extracting the oil only from the flesh of the olives. The edition is illustrated with three beautiful fold-out plates, two of which depict the mill described by the author. A good copy. Some light spotting.