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 Dic- 

 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 Linnaeus, 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 got a 

 rare double jessamine (Gardens 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 (Salisbury), which thrives well, and, when he has in- 



