The Art of the Mole-Catcher, or, An Amusing and Infallible Method of Catching Moles

Étienne-François DraletProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
91K words
Chapters
10

Tags

Foreign Language Books Agriculture Forestry Livestock Nature ObservationLife WisdomIllustrated StepsPractical GuideHumor Relief

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.L'art du taupier; ou, méthode amusante et infaillible de prendre les taupesAuthor: Dralet, M. (Etienne François), 1754-1844,Language: French, Class: SB: Agriculture: Plant culture, Release Date: Jun 10, 2011

Editor's review

L'art du taupier is a book devoted to mole-catching written by the French author Étienne François Dralet in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century; its subtitle translates literally as "an amusing and infallible method of catching moles." It is a French public-domain document preserved by Project Gutenberg, classified under agriculture and horticulture, though its content is closer to a practical technical manual of an earlier age. Its value today lies not in copying its hunting methods but in observing how people of the time summarized field experience, organized operating steps, and in the language and form of knowledge of such manuals. The book is written in French, and its length and structure suit reading in sections; readers can treat it as material for agricultural history, natural history, or French reading practice. One caution: the methods are historical records, and modern readers should mainly seek to understand the document rather than imitate its operations directly.

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Reading tips

  1. Read through the contents and subheadings first to understand the order in which the author organizes his methods, then go on to the main text.
  2. Treat the operational descriptions as historical texts to analyze, not as steps to imitate in practice.
  3. French learners can closely read one short section at a time and compile vocabulary related to tools and actions.
  4. Read alongside background material on agricultural history or natural history to understand the purpose of such manuals.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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FAQ

What is this book about? It is an old manual, written in French, on methods of catching moles, in which the author systematically sets out practices and experience in mole-catching. It is a practical technical document, read today more as material on agricultural history and the forms of knowledge of an earlier age than as a modern control guide.
What does "taupier" in the title mean? In French, "taupier" refers to a mole-catcher or the related trade; the title can be roughly understood as "the mole-catcher's art." The subtitle stresses that the author's methods are both amusing and reliable, reflecting the promotional phrasing common to old practical manuals.
Can the methods in the book still be used today? The book records hunting practices of a historical period, which may not conform to modern animal-protection and control regulations. Read it as a document and scholarly reference rather than copying the operations directly; for actual control needs, consult current local regulations and professional advice.
What level of French is needed to read it? The text is an old French practical manual, and its sentence patterns and vocabulary bear the traces of its time; an intermediate level of reading ability will make it easier to enter. Beginners can read paragraph by paragraph with a dictionary, focusing on understanding tool names and descriptions of actions rather than translating word for word.

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About the author

Étienne-François Dralet Author · French · 1754–1844

Étienne-François Dralet (1754–1844) was a French forestry official and writer whose works dealt with forestry and natural history in the Pyrenees region. Only one of his titles is held in this collection, yet it stands out for its unusual subject. The little book L'art du taupier, ou méthode amusante et infaillible de prendre les taupes turns the seemingly trivial task of catching moles into a clearly organized practical guide, written with the down-to-earth practicality of a forestry officer and the curiosity of a naturalist; the tone is light but never careless. Because public information is limited, the details of his life remain largely unknown, but the surviving text still shows a writer familiar with rural work and skilled at turning specialized experience into plain, readable prose. Such works, poised between farming manuals and nature observation, typify the local forestry and natural-history writing of turn-of-the-nineteenth-century France.