14 
LE BON JAEDmiER 
Bolton, Cat. Sci. Per., no,1011, gives 1753 as 
date of the first issue, hut the earliest that can 
be accounted for by Gibault and recent editors of 
the publication is 1754. Even that can no longer 
be located, but ’’Bon jardinier,” 1905, p.vi-viii, 
and Meunissier, Card. Chron. (3) 56:123 (1914), 
conclude that there must have been an issue for 
that year. The name of the editor is not given in 
the earliest issues; but they were probably by 
Pons Augustin Alletz until 1768, when Thomas Fran¬ 
cois de Grace and Verdier appear as editors. No 
names are given for the next few years, but De 
Grace and Verdier reappear in 1778, and the for¬ 
mer seems to have been responsible for the pub¬ 
lication from 1783 to 1797. He died in 1799, and 
it is not clear who was the editor at that time, 
but from 1803 onward the initials of Mordant de 
Launay appear on the title page. Bolton’s infer¬ 
ence that the ’’Jardinier portatif” constituted a 
certain series of the "Bon jardinier” must have 
been due to the fact that De Grace, while editor 
of the latter, wrote a little manual of garden¬ 
ing u%er the former title. It was not an annual, 
but passed thru several editions, from the first, 
published Lifege, 1769, down to 1^1. 
No attempt has been made torgive here changes 
in title, editorship or imprint during the 19th 
century. Publication ceased with the almanac for 
1912. 
The following articles have been consulted for 
early history: Bon jardinier, 1905, p.vi-viii; 
Gibault, Jour, Soc, Nat, Hort, France, 1905, p. 
724; Meunissier, Gard. Chron. (3) 56:128 (1914); 
Robinet, M^m. Soc. Imp. et Cent. Agr. 1856 (1): 
156-172 (1857). 
The following sheets show 18th century issues 
of the ”Bon jardinier” that have been located in 
libraries. 
