John Abercrombie (horticulturalist)

John Abercrombie (1726–1806) was a Scottish horticulturist important to renovating garden techniques. He is noted for the book Every Man His Own Gardener (1767), which he co-wrote with Thomas Mawe.[1] He also taught botany at the University of Cambridge.

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 other works on gardening.[2]

Selected writings

• 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

1. Every Man His Own Gardener By John Abercrombie, Thomas Mawe
2. The Dictionary of National Biography: the Concise Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1939; p. 3

Further reading

• Chambers, Robert; Thomson, Thomas Napier (1857). "Abercromby, John" . A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. 1. Glasgow: Blackie and Son. p. 2 – via Wikisource.

External links

• Works by or about John Abercrombie in libraries (WorldCat catalog)