The American Gardener

Modern Library Gardening

by William Cobbett, Verlyn Klinkenborg (Introduction)

Back in print after 150 years

Out of print since 1856, The American Gardener is perhaps the first classic work of American gardening literature. In it, William Cobbett, Victorian England’s greatest and most gifted journalist, draws upon his experiences during a two-year exile on a Long Island, New York, farm to lay out the rudiments of gardening for American farmers and, ultimately, to tailor principles developed in wet, drippy, weed-prone British gardens to their fine, sun-drenched counterparts in America. Full of practical knowledge memorably imparted with Cobbett’s gift for the indelible phrase, The American Gardener offers advice still useful today on all aspects of gardening, with special attention to those plants successful in the New World, including the artichoke (“indeed, a thistle upon a gigantic scale”) and the increasingly ubiquitous potato. Rediscovered 180 years after its composition, The American Gardener is evidence of a great mind and pen at work in the earliest days of American gardens.

This Modern Library edition is published with a new Introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a New York Times editorialist and the author of The Rural Life , Making Hay , and The Last Fine Time .

Genres: Gardening, Nature, Nonfiction, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2003

About the author

William Cobbett (1763-1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly. He was also against the Corn Laws, a tax on imported grain. Early in his career, he was a loyalist supporter of King and Country: but later he joined and successfully publicised the radical movement, which led to the Reform Bill of 1832, and to his winning the parliamentary seat of Oldham. Although he was not a Catholic, he became a fiery advocate of Catholic Emancipation in Britain. Through the seeming contradictions in Cobbett's life, two things stayed constant: an opposition to authority and a suspicion of novelty. He wrote many polemics, on subjects from political reform to religion, but is best known for his book from 1830, Rural Rides, which is still in print today.

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

gardening for every decade

This is an OLD text, pertinent to Long Island, zone 5 but it is filled with many interesting facts, ideas, common sense, and indeed wisdom. He was obviously a gardener, even with all his other talents. I bought the book because of the foreward by Verlyn Klinkenborg - as I can never get enough of his writing - and this has a wonderful biography to start the read.

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1820, it has some very interesting views on gardening including a section on howto do a "hot bed." I had heard the expression but I had no idea what it was. Gardening actually has changed relatively little and yes it is still all about the soil. Not really a how to, it is just a look back.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cobbett argues that gardens are created partly for the present, but mostly for future generations. His detailed descriptions of how to grow a wide range of plants are a gift to all those who followed him.