Sarah Easterby-Smith rewrites the histories of botany and horticulture from the perspectives of plant merchants who sold botanical specimens in the decades around 1800. These merchants were not professional botanists, nor were they the social equals of refined amateurs of botany. Nevertheless, they participated in Enlightenment scholarly networks, acting as intermediaries who communicated information and specimens. Thanks to their practical expertise, they also became sources of new knowledge in their own right. Cultivating Commerce argues that these merchants made essential contributions to...

Cultivating Commerce is an accessibly written and beautifully illustrated new social history of botany in Britain and France. It will appeal to all students and scholars working on British and French culture, the history of science and social and gender history in the late eighteenth century.