Biography of Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau

Research by Bret Payne

Henri Louis Du Hamel (later de-nobilized to Duhamel) du Monceau was born in 1700 in Paris. His family worked as farmers in the fields of Denainvilliers (near Pithiviers). Little is known of his childhood or his life before he entered college. Writing on such subjects as agriculture, metallurgy, meteorology, sylviculture, pomology, and boat-building, his encyclopedic capacity was enhanced by his experimental approaches and a desire to know the how and why these things worked.

His education started at College d'Harcourt (later renovated into Lycée Saint-Louis) in Paris. From there, he went on to study law at Orléans. At the age of 21, he returned to Paris to study at the Jardin du Roi, which later became the Jardin des Plantes. One of his new friends at the Jardin, Bernard de Jussieu (1699 –1777?), recommended him to the Académie des Sciences to study the disease that had been plaguing the saffron crocus in and around the areas of Boynes (Gâtinais). At the time, this plant was an integral part of the commerce in this area, mainly for its opaque yellow stamens used in dyeing. His studies and experiments met with success when he discovered that a fungus had been responsible for the disease. Duhamel published his work on the subject in 1728 and subsequently became a member of the Académie des Sciences.

The same year saw him publish the essay, Recherches sur les causes de la multiplication des espèces des fruit. The work contained explanations and drawings of some of his experiments with grafting fruit trees, showing that the genetic structure of a cultivar could not be augmented through this technique. His fascination with the Greek Goddess Pomona remained a constant from this point in his life onward. Duhamel published Anatomie de la Poire, a brochure on pears, in two parts between the years 1730-1731. His ambition to expound upon this work would come to fruition 20 years later in his Traité des Arbres Fruitiers.

In 1731, Duhamel was appointed as the French Navy’s Inspector General for their ordnance. His tenure with the French government did not interfere with his studies in plant physiology or agriculture. It simply gave Duhamel room to exercise his intellect and tie these seemingly diverse subjects closer together. He published works on rope- making, sail-making, boat-building and various other maritime topics. In his treatise on rope-making, Traite de la Fabrique de Manoeuvres pour les Vaisseaux ou l’Art de la Corderie Perfectionne (first published in 1747), he discusses the cultivation of hemp, its treatment, and how it is manufactured into rope. His experiments with tree cultivation on his brother’s and his own estates aided his studies in boat-building. He attempted to cultivate wood that would acclimate itself both to the demands of builders and the ocean. His detailed description of the construction of naval ships, Elemens de l’Architecture navale, ou Traite pratique de la construction des vaisseaux was published in 1752 by Charles Antoine Jombert.

Jethro Tull (1674-1741), the English agronomist, published his Horse-Hoeing Husbandry in 1731. Tull theorized that the earth was the primary factor in the health of crops. His work not only covered instructions for tilling and sowing, but included descriptions and illustrations of the various ploughing and planting implements. The profound influence of this publication was clear as he translated part of it into French in 1750, and later published a treaty, which compiled his own first-hand observations with Tull's complete work. He used some of the techniques described by Tull in his book and experimented with trees and shrubs on his estates in Vrigny and Monceau (in Loiret) and on his brother Alexandre’s land in Denainvilliers.

Around 1750, Duhamel showed a manuscript work on fruit trees complete with illustrations to René Le Berryais (1722-1807). The work was initially started after he published the two brochures, Anatomie de la Poire, in 1730 and 1731. Duhamel had hired the artists Claude Aubriet (c. 1665-1742) and Ma(g)deleine Basseporte (1701-1780) to illustrate the 16 different fruit species and multiple cultivars to be included in the published work. René Le Berryais ended up helping the artists complete some of the original drawings, which were to be duplicated in engravings for the printing of the work. This ended up being one of Duhamel’s most ambitious works. The finished product was Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, published in 1768.

Starting in 1755, Duhamel began publishing an eight-volume work titled Traité complet des Bois et des Fôrets that would attempt to detail all aspects of trees including their planting, growth, maintenance, and transportation. The first installation started with two volumes titled Traité des Arbres et Arbustes (1755). Other titles that were included in the comprehensive work were La Physique des Arbres (1758), De l’Exploitation des Bois (1764), and finally Du Transport (1767).

Between the years 1752 and 1777, he authored various works that appeared both in Diderot’s Encyclopédie and the Dictionnaire des Arts et Metiers. Among the more than 20 subjects he covered were metallurgy, tobacco pipes and the kilns used in their manufacturing, the printing of playing cards, candlesticks, paste, soap, locks, refining sugar, and fishing.

Duhamel died in Paris on August 13, 1782. At the time of his death, his forests in Vrigny and Denainvilliers contained no less than 692 different species of trees. His enduring legacy was testament to the amateurs and scientists who hoped to accomplish a fraction of what he had achieved.