Tuesday 19 January 2016

Abercrombe's "Every man his own gardener."

I have this book and a lot of other 18th and 19 century gardening books on my kindle from Forgotten Books but there is nothing like being able to thumb through pages. 

Trying to find stuff that you discovered in the book but not sure where, is almost impossible.  I know people will say that I should make notes or bookmark or whatever but I'm reading and don't want to be disturbed. 

So I have bought the book.  It is second hand and according to Amazon "Good".  Which I think means that it is readable.  What else would you want a book for? 

Why Abercrombe?  Well it is one of the first of the "how to" books.  It also tells you when to do things.  Whether or not I feel the advice is relevant, it is still worth seeing what Abercrombe thinks about it. 

Abercrombe was writing in a time when there was little glass house technology.  Indeed there was very little technology in the garden beyond hand  and possibly horse drawn tools. 

If you are trying to use the very minimum of imported materials and energy then this book will give you some insight into how to do it. 

It might have been written from experience of the gardens of the super rich but it is still of use today. 

No comments:

Post a Comment