John Abercrombie (1726 – 2 May 1806) was a Scottish horticulturist important to renovating garden techniques.Johnson, George William. (1829). A History of English Gardening, Chronological, Biographical, Literary, and Critical. London: Baldwin & Cradock. pp. 219-224 He is noted for the book Every Man His Own Gardener (1767), which he co-wrote with Thomas Mawe.Every Man His Own Gardener By John Abercrombie, Thomas Mawe
Biography
Abercrombie was born in Edinburgh. 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.The Dictionary of National Biography: the Concise Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1939; p. 3
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. He died from injuries obtained from an accident.
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)
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