June 15, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENfitl. 



4g9 



portanoe to found new species on ; in times past, and in our 

 own times under some prevailing theories, the variations would 

 be looked for under some law of external influences modifying 

 form. Without offering any opinion on these points, he would 

 simply observe that all these plants were taken from one small 

 spot at Berlin, Xew Jersey, and had all been growing in his 

 garden under exactly the same cironmstanoes together. 



In accordance with long-established Whit-Tuesday 



custom what is known as the flower sermon was given on 

 the evening of the Oth inst. by the Rev. Dr. Whittemore to 

 a crowded congregation in the ancient City church of St. 

 K^therine Cree. At this interesting service, as the Ihiilii 

 News has explained, the young persons for whom it is specially 

 designed attend with nosegays of flowers, the hymns sung are 

 chosen for their allnsions to the flowery gifts of the summer 

 season, and the sermon is preached upon some one of the 

 many flowers mentioned in the Bible. It is about twenty-three 

 years since it occurred to Dr. Whittemore to profit from the 

 universal interest that is taken, especially among children, 

 in flowers, by choosing this convenient day in the season of 

 flowers for a children's service. The experiment was so suc- 

 cessful and so acceptable to both young and old that it was 

 continued ; as a matter of course the service is now quite a 

 City institution. Children with bouquets, and adults with 

 smaller nosegays or button-hole flowers, fill every available 

 space in the old church, and the preacher looks down on a 

 veritable garden as he pleasantly disoourse.s on his particular 

 theme. Until the old-fashioned boxes in the church gave 

 place to the modern pew the sight to individual members of 

 the congregation will not be nearly so striking as it must be 

 from the pulpit. Still, there are the ancient costumes and the 

 happy faces of the Aldgate Ward charity children to be seen 

 in the organ gallery, with their bouquets — the gifts of the 

 churchwardens — and the not less beaming faces and smiling 

 nosegays of the children in the centre aisle from St. John's 

 School, Westbourne-park, not to speak of the display of flowers 

 around the visitor in whatever box he may find himself in- 

 closed. In the pulpit is a nosegay which has been placed there 

 by a hand that recognised Dr. Whittemore'a interesting ser- 

 vices in the same way many years ago. The hand was then 

 that of a gratified child, who now attends the services as a 

 married woman, with children of her own, but who still claims 

 the privilege of thus adorning the pulpit from which she has 

 so long derived pleasure and instruction. Dr. Whittemore 

 acknowledged this little attention almost in his earliest words. 

 His discourse on this occasion was on the Olive flower from the 

 text in Job xv. 33, " He shall cast off his flower as the Olive." 



EARLY WEITER8 ON ENGLISH GARDENING. 



No. 15. 

 JOHN ABERCEOMBIE. 



It has been said with almost as much truth as wit that 

 " Every man his own lawyer " would insure that he had a fool 

 for his client ; but it is not so in horticulture, and we have 

 no hesitation in declaring our opinion that the little volume 

 entitled " Every Man His Own Gardener " succeeded in diffus- 

 ing a love for gardening, and enabling anyone to practise it 

 successfully, more than any book that has been published. 

 Yet so humbly did th i author of that work f stimate his own 

 ability to instruct, and so little did he think anyone would 

 admit him as a teacher, that Dr. Goldsmith was engaged 

 to revise its language, and Mr. Mawe, the gardener of the 

 Duke of Leeds, to see that its teachings were correct. They 

 neither of them performed the duties they had undertaken, 

 though Mr. Mawe received twenty pounds for allowing his 

 name to be on the title page, and Goldsmith remarked that 

 " Abercrombie's style was best suited to the subjects of which 

 it treated." 



The author — the entire and unaided author— of that volume 

 was John Abercrombie, whose name is a household word 

 among both amateur and professional gardeners, and to trace 

 his career we now devote our attention. 



He was born at Edinburgh in 1726, near which city his 

 father conducted a considerable market garden. From his 

 infancy he was employed to assist in this undertaking which 

 was one particularly suited to his taste. At fourteen he became 

 an apprentice of his father. He was thoroughly grounded 

 in his profession, the practice of years being retained and 

 concentrated by a habit we commend to all young gardeners 

 of committing to paper the observations he made in its pursuit 

 from a very early age. Soon after his apprenticeship expired, 



being about eighteen, upon a domestic misunderstanding he 

 came to London, where he obtained employment in some of 

 the Royal Gardens, at Kew, and at Leicester House. After- 

 wards he became gardener to Dr. Munro and other gentlemen. 

 About 1751-2 he became gardener to Sir James Douglas, 

 during his continuance in whose service he married. Fearing 

 his family might become troublesome he left his situation 

 in 1759, and returned to Scotland with the intention of be- 

 ooming kitchen and market gardener, but came again to 

 England after an absence of only ten months. He was 

 engaged in the service of several noblemen and gentlemen 

 until 1770, when he engaged a kitchen garden and small 

 nursery ground between Mile End Road and Hackney, attend- 

 ing Spitalfields Market with the products until 1771-2. At 

 this period he became a publican in Dog Row, Mile End. His 

 house was afterwards converted into the Artichoke Tea 

 Gardens. By the importunity of his wife he left this and 

 entered into the seed and nursery business at Newington and 

 Tottenham Court, carrying on at the same time an extensive 

 trade as a kitchen gardener and florist. The taste he displayed 

 in arranging and the skill in cultivating gardens induced a 

 recommendation to publish on those subjects ; but it was long 

 before his diffidence would allow him to make an attempt. 

 He showed his MS. to Mr. Griffin, a bookseller in Catherine 

 Street, Strand, who with Abercrombie's consent showed it to 

 Mr. Mawe, the Duke of Leeds's gardener. Mr. Mawe highly 

 applauded the work. When introduced to Mawe, whom he 

 had never before seen, poor Abercrombie (as he used facetiously 

 to narrate) encountered a gentleman so bepowdered, and so 

 bedaubed with gold lace, that he thought he could be in the 

 presence of no less a personage than the duke himself. How- 

 ever, they soon came to a right understanding, for he con- 

 tinued his visit for more than a fortnight and " fared sumptu- 

 ously every day." He likewise received much information 

 from Mawe, as the groundwork of improvements which he 

 afterwards made in his book, " Every Man his own Gardener," 

 and in other publications. They subsequently maintained a 

 friendly correspondence for years. " Every Man his own Gar- 

 dener " was first published under the authorship of Thomas 

 Mawe only in 1767, and has passed through many editions. 

 Afterwards becoming more confident Abercrombie published 

 his " Gardener's Pocket Journal, or Daily Assistant," which 

 obtained a very extensive sale and has since passed through 

 many editions. Besides these he compiled many other book?, 

 of which we append a list. 



For the last twenty years of his life he lived in a great 

 degree upon tea, taking it three times a-day, seldom or never 

 eating meat. He frequently declared that tea and tobacco 

 were the great promoters of his health. His pipe was his 

 first companion in the morning and the last at night. He 

 often smoked for six hours without interruption. He never 

 remembered taking physio until after the occurrence of the 

 accident which caused his death, nor of having but one 

 day's iUnesa before his last, about twenty-three years pre- 

 viously. 



He died from an accident on the 2nd of May, 1806. He at 

 one period after the publication of his " Every Man His Own 

 Gardener," had actually embarked to superintend the Gardens 

 of the Empress of Russia, but the sight of the ocean inspired 

 him with terrors which he could not overcome. 



From 1796 to the time of his decease he continued to reside 

 in Charlton Street, Somers Town, excepting when visiting or 

 professionally employed. He was occasionally employed to 

 plan gardens and pleasure grounds, for which he was some- 

 times handsomely remunerated. When unemployed he was a 

 constant pursuer of knowledge and information at the various 

 nursery grounds and gardens near the metropolis. 



The following is a list of his horticultural works in the 

 order in which they were published : — 



1, " Every Man His Own Gardener, being a new Gardener's 

 Calendar with Complete Lists of Forest Trees, Flowering 

 Shrubs, Fruit Trees, Evergreens, Annual, Biennial, and Per- 

 ennial Flowers, Hothouse, Greenhouse, and Kitchen Garden 

 Plants, with the varieties of each sort cultivated in the Eng- 

 lish Gardens." London, 1767 ; twenty-sixth edition in 1857. 

 In later editions Abercrombie's own name has appeared in 

 the title-page together with that of Thomas Mawe which it 

 originally bore alone, though he had nothing to do with its 

 composition. 2, " The Universal Gardener and Botanist ; or 

 a General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany, exhibiting in 

 Botanical Arrangement, according to the Linnrean System, 

 every Tree, Shrub, and Herbaoeons Plant that merits Cul- 



