John Abercrombie (horticulturist)
John Abercrombie (1726 – 2 May 1806) was a Scottish horticulturist important to renovating garden techniques.[2] He is noted for the book Every Man His Own Gardener (1767), which he co-wrote with Thomas Mawe.[3]
John Abercrombie | |
|---|---|
 Picture of Abercrombie from The propagation and botanical arrangements of plants and trees, 1784 | |
| Born | 1726 |
| Died | 2 May 1806 |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Occupation | Horticulturist |
| Notable work | Every Man His Own Gardener[1] |
Biography edit
Abercrombie was born in Edinburgh.[2] As a young man Abercrombie was employed at the Royal Gardens at Kew, and at Leicester House; and later set up a successful market gardening business in Hackney and later at Tottenham. He wrote a number of works on gardening.[4]
For the last 20 years of his life, Abercrombie was a heavy consumer of tea and a vegetarian. He smoked his pipe for six hours a day and stated that tea and tobacco were promoters of his health.[2] He died from injuries obtained from an accident.[2]
Selected writings edit
- The Universal Gardener and Botanist; or, a General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany (1778)
- The Garden Mushroom (1779)
- The British Fruit Gardener; and Art of Pruning (1779)
- A General System of Trees and Shrubs (ca. 1780)
- Every Man His Own Gardener, 9th edition (1782)
References edit
- ^ Details - Every man his own gardener. Being a new, and much more complete gardener's kalendar than any one hitherto published. Biodiversity Heritage Library. 1782.
- ^ a b c d Johnson, George William. (1829). A History of English Gardening, Chronological, Biographical, Literary, and Critical. London: Baldwin & Cradock. pp. 219-224
- ^ Every Man His Own Gardener By John Abercrombie, Thomas Mawe
- ^ The Dictionary of National Biography: the Concise Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1939; p. 3
Further reading edit
- Chambers, Robert; Thomson, Thomas Napier (1857). . A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. Vol. 1. Glasgow: Blackie and Son. p. 2 – via Wikisource.
External links edit
  | This biographical article about a Scottish scientist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |