Senshun Compilers (1 results)

33 double-page & 181 full-page black & white woodcuts. 30 vols. bound in 15. Large 8vo, orig. brown patterned semi-stiff wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. [Kagoshima fiefdom]: [Kagoshima-han ????], Introduction in first volume dated "1804." First edition of this great agricultural and botanical work, an encyclopedic survey of all the agricultural products and practices of Japan. It is wonderfully illustrated with a splendid series of woodcuts. This book is today a valuable repository of traditional Japanese knowledge of crops, including vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees; agricultural practices; and food-processing methods. The authors focus on the properties and characteristics of crops, their utility for humans, and the best systems to cultivate them. Less than half of the crop species described in this work are still grown in substantial quantities as commercial products in Japan. Much of our description is based on the remarkable article (they approach this book in such a fascinating way) by Shantonu Abe Chatterjee & Tinde van Andel, "Lost Grains and Forgotten Vegetables from Japan: the Seikei Zusetsu Agricultural Catalog (17931804)" in Economic Botany, Vol. 73 (2019), pp. 375-89, and Federico Marcon's The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan (Chicago: 2015), pp. 285-90. This encyclopedia of agriculture was commissioned in 1793 by Shigehide Shimazu ???? (1745-1833), the highly cultured ruler of the Satsuma domain in southern Japan. The purpose of the work was to provide a complete source of information for improving agricultural production in the region by expansion, diversification, and maximization using improved agricultural methods. For the preparation of the book, Shimazu recruited the doctor and botanist Senshun So (1758-1834), the nativist scholar Kunihashira Shirao ???? (1762-1821), the Confucian scholar Tomoaki Mukai, and the Rangaku scholar Monjuro Hori to gather and edit the field notes Shimazu had made over the years. The works of Dodoens and Kaempfer were also consulted. The illustration blocks were carved by Doryu Yoshikiyo Taniyama (d. 1811). The splendid illustrations show a large number of crop varieties, planting and harvesting methods, irrigation techniques, flood controls, farm tools, pest controls, agricultural ceremonies, and festivals. One hundred volumes were planned, but only 30 were printed, as the woodblocks for the remaining unpublished volumes were destroyed in fires in 1806 and 1829. "The treatise begins with the usual prefaces, and through Vol. VI deals with generalities, illustrated by several very curious scenes of ceremonies and farmsteads, then with rice planting, agricultural festivals, harvesting, etc. Following volumes through Vol. XII take up surveying, irrigation, drainage, flood control, etc. Vols. XIII and XIV deal with farm tools, implements, measures, etc. The actual agricultural botany begins with the description of rice varieties in Vols. XV and XVI, followed by other cereals and the legumes in Vols. XVII through XX. Cruciferous root crops and green vegetables come in Vol. XXI; aroids and yams in Vol. XXII; burdock, umbellifers, Amaranthus, and other miscellanea in Vol. XXIII; onions and ginger in Vol. XXIV; more miscellaneous plants, including Capsicum in Vol. XXV; cucurbits and egg-plant in Vol. XXVII; lotus (i.e., Nelumbo) and the water chestnut in Vol. XXVIII; more Cruciferae in Vol. XXIX; and a final miscellany of wildlings for famine food, ranging from Compositae to Equisetum, in Vol. XXX. This great work on agriculture and agricultural botany is a priceless record, beautifully illustrated."Bartlett & Shohara, Japanese Botany during the Period of Wood-block Printing (1961), pp. 68-69. There are three issues of this work; our copy is of the first issue, with all the woodcuts in black & white. There were also sets known as the "superior" issue, in which the plates in Vols. 1-20 are splendidly block-printed with color, while Vols. 21-30 contain uncolored plates. A very few specially made "luxury" sets (saishiki tokusei bon; of Vols. 21-30 were hand-colored for presentation to aristocrats and fiefdom lords. Von Siebold's copy at the University of Leiden is such an example; it was probably presented to him by Hoshu Katsuragawa (1736-1809), a prominent Rangaku scholar who was part of the team that produced the Kaitai shinsho. Remarkably, many of the summaries and plant names have been translated into Dutch using katakana. In fine and fresh condition, preserved in a chitsu. Three volumes with light partial dampstaining. Like the two copies described by Kerlen (see below) and another set we sold, our set does not have the title-page in the first volume or the colophon in the final volume. ? Kerlen, Catalogue of Pre-Meiji Japanese Books and Maps in Public Collections in the Netherlands 1426.