Book of Trees.

Printed yellow wraps, 32mo, 22pp with first and last pages (frontis- and afterpiece) laminated to wraps. Pictorial cover + 10 woodcut illustrations signed by Alexander Anderson and J.W. Morse, 7 with hand-coloring. Preface signed "M. D." Very Good with very shallow nibbling over about 1" of the foredge at the rear wrap, diminishing through the later pages with no loss to text. American Imprints 1837 Checklist 43308. 6 in OCLC. 

An uncommon title by Quaker publisher Mahlon Day, charming in its borderline transcendentalist veneration of arboriculture. He mentions contemporary parks in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and references trees in mythology and Bible stories. His discussion of the commercial use of trees is salient in noting the role of enslaved individuals in the industrial cultivation of trees in the South. He writes:

"In some parts of the country, white men generally do the work, and there are very few people of color.—But it is not so at the south. Some white men who are poor, work; but most of the labor, particularly on plantations, and in the swamps is done by slaves, though there are some colored people who are free. The colored people are very fond of working in the Dismal swamp, because they are there under less restraint than on a plantation; and as their task-work, in the swamp, is by no means unreasonable, some of them will make a dollar, or two dollars a week, for themselves" (15-16).

It is a soft depiction that outside the context of Mahlon Day's track record of antislavery publishing reads mildly apologist, along the "conditions aren't always so bad" lines. But the timing of the publication makes it of particular interest--Day famously accompanied Joseph John Gurney on a spiritual trip through the West Indies in 1839-1840 that expanded his understanding of slavery in practice. OCLC shows a 32-page version of the book was published around 1840-1844, prompting a question about whether (and what) changes he may have made, particularly in that section, after his voyage.