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Privately Printed, Los Angeles, Published 1923. Hardcover, 101 pp. plus 24 unnumbered pages of plates; 21 cm; First Edition (no other printings recorded); illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographic plates from Thorpe's journey; printed by Young & McAllister, Inc., Los Angeles.
In Good condition, no dust jacket as issued. Grey paper boards with olive-green cloth backstrip and black-titled front cover bearing a small walnut-tree device. Boards show bumping and shelf wear to edges and corners with some nicking and peeling at the corner tips, exposing a hint of underlying board. Substantial water staining to the fore-edge area of both front and rear covers, with dampstaining to the top corner of several pages at the beginning and end. Pages toned but otherwise unmarked. Binding tight. A previous owner's gift inscription in black ink on the title page identifies the book as a presentation from the Walnut Association of Southern California.Laid in is the original typed circular letter from Carlyle Thorpe (General Manager), addressed to the Association walnut growers and bearing his printed facsimile signature, that accompanied the book's distribution to Association members in 1923. The letter explains the booklet's origin as "a rambling account of my journey through the walnut sections of Europe and Asia," prepared so that "every California walnut grower" could understand foreign competition.Thorpe's first-person account of a commission undertaken in 1922-23 for the California Walnut Growers Association (where he served as General Manager) to assess foreign competition in the walnut trade. The journey runs from Hawaii and Japan through China (most extensively the Tang Shan Valley near Peking and the Western Hills district), continues through South Asia, and ends with the established walnut regions of France (Grenoble, Bordeaux) and Italy. Thorpe writes in a casual travel-narrative voice interlaced with detailed reporting on cultivation methods, harvest practices, and shelling hygiene; one of the few period sources documenting both the international walnut industry of the early 1920s and the experience of an American business traveler in early-Republic China.Contents: A Timely Journey; Hawaii and Japan; The American Business Man in the Orient; In Search of Chinese Walnut Districts; Cultivated Trees of the Tang Shan Valley; Social Conditions in China; Non-Cultivated Walnuts of the Western Hills Section; Motoring Into the Interior of China; The Hardy Trees of the Shansi Province; Back to Civilization; General Observations on the Chinese Walnut Industry; Uncleanliness of Chinese Shelled Walnuts; The South Asiatic Countries; Walnut Growing in the Grenoble District, France; Intense Cultivation in Italy; Hit or Miss Methods of the Bordeaux District; European Shelled Walnuts; Conclusion and Conclusions.