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Title:
The abridgement of the gardeners dictionary : containing the best and newest methods of cultivating and improving the kitchen, fruit, flower garden, and nursery; together with the management of vineyards, and the methods of making wine in England. In which likewise are included directions for propagating and improving, from real practice and experience, pasture lands and all sorts of timber trees / By Philip Miller, F.R.S. ...
Author
Miller, Philip, 1691-1771.
Other titles
Gardeners dictionary. Abridgments.
Edition
The sixth edition, corrected and much enlarged.

Plants were given all sorts of names and from their descriptions it was not possible to be sure that two descriptions applied to the same plant. This made research very difficult. So Miller founded the Society of Gardeners which met monthly in Chelsea and compared new plants coming in from all over the world with established examples.

Eventually the Society buckled under the sheer volume of plants but the work made Miller's name and he was appointed Head of the Chelsea Physic Garden which still exists today. Miller was there for 50 years with the garden representing not just medicinal plants but also plants of economic importance such as dye plants (e.g. Woad) and fibre plants such as sisal used in rope making and cotton which eventually made America!
Miller took all the notes from the Society of Gardeners and put them in his Gardener's Dictionary which went through eight editions. We hold the 6th edition of the abridged version (1771). This really is a list of names and is a very dry read. However he has started to indicate the latinized binomial the first being the plant’s Genus and the second the specific epithet as advocated by Linnaeus but resisted by Miller in earlier editions.