Images from the Book

Tole and wood fruit pickers, mainly nineteenth century, fill a wicker basket.

European and American mail-order catalogs for seeds, tools, and other gardening equipment proliferated from 1850 on. Often printed in lavish color, the catalogs were an efficient way for people who lived in isolated areas to obtain up-to-date tools and new varieties of seeds every year. Catalogs diminished in popularity only at the time of World War II.

A sampling of clay containers, including round and square shallow terrines, top row; two-to-eight-inch-high pots, with and without rims, second row; half-pots that can be hung flush to the wall, bottom row, center; an unusual drainage pipe, bottom row, second from right; and a hyacinth pot, bottom row, far right.

Copper sulfate and a tin of Bordeaux mixture were two essential weapons in the French gardener's arsenal against pests. The two glass bottles are topped with vaporizer tubes, which allowed for a more accurate gauging of insecticide dosages. The copper syringe attached to a copper reservoir was a time-saving innovation dating form the early nineteenth century.

A classical eighteenth-century copper watering can with a double handle could be filled quickly because the straight part of the handle allowed it to be easily submerged in a basin. The shape also made for more rapid watering.