CHAP. II. BRITISH ISLANDS. 77 
propagation. It was the number of these, and the exhaustion 
they occasioned, which killed the tree. 
Furber, mentioned by Collinson, was a nurseryman at Ken- 
‘sington, and one of those gardeners who formed a society for 
publishing a work on gardening, of whose Catalogue some 
account is given in p. 60. Miller was secretary of this society, 
which, as it is said, dissolving through difference of opinion, the 
papers became Miller’s, and led to the publication of his Diec- 
tionary. Furber’s grounds are now partly built on, and the 
remainder forms part of Messrs. William Malcolm and Co.’s 
nursery. 
Thomas Fairchild had a nursery and an excellent vineyard. 
For the time in which he lived, he was a scientific gardener, and 
distinguished himself by a paper, in the Royal Society's Transac- 
tions (vol. xxxiii. p. 127.), “ On the different, and sometimes 
contrary, Motion of the Sap in Plants.” He introduced various 
new trees and shrubs from the Continent of Europe and North 
America, as will be seen by the list at the end of this section. 
He was author of the City Gardener. He died in 1729, and left 
funds for a botanical sermon, to be delivered annually on Whit- 
sun Tuesday, at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch. ‘The legacy left by 
Fairchild produced a guinea a year, but this sum being thought 
insufficient, a subscription was entered into, the produce of 
which has raised the annual sum to three guineas, ‘These 
sermons were preached for many years by Dr. Colin Milne, 
author of the Botanical Dictionary, by whom they were pub- 
lished in 1779. ‘The sermon is now preached annually by the 
Rev. William Ellis, of Merchant Tailors’ School. Some curious 
details respecting this legacy will be found in Henry Elles’s 
Account of the Parish of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch. 
James Gordon, nurseryman at Mile End, London, who had 
previously been gardener to Robert Lord Petre, is thus spoken 
of in a letter from Ellis to Linneeus, dated April 25. 1758:— 
“If you want a correspondent here that is a curious gar- 
dener, I shall recommend you to Mr. James Gordon, gardener 
at Mile End, London. This man was bred under Lord Petre 
and Dr. Sherard, and knows systematically all the plants he 
cultivates. He has more knowledge in vegetation than all the 
gardeners and writers on gardening in England put together; 
but he is too modest to publish anything. If you send him any 
thing rare, he will make you a proper return. We have gota 
rare double jessamine (Gardénia florida) from the Cape, that is 
not described: this man has raised it from cuttings, when all 
the other gardeners have failed in the attempt. I have lately 
got him a curious collection of seeds from the East Indies, many 
of which are growing, but are quite new to us. He has got the 
ginkgo (Salisbirza), which thrives well, and, when he has in- 
x 
