LIFE OF JOHN C. LOUDON. 



spersing the descriptions of the various places he saw with a mass of valuable 

 reflections on various subjects, which he conceived would be useful to gardeners, 

 la the following year, 1829, he suggested the idea of having breathing zones, or 

 unoccupied spaces half a mile broad, at different intervals around London ; and, 

 in the next article to this, he first suggested the idea of making use of the manure 

 now carried to waste by the common sewers, a plan whi%h has since engaged the 

 attention of many talented persons. Another plan suggested by him about this 

 period, was for establishing national schools, or, as he termed them, parochial 

 institutions for education. In the same volume, is a suggestion for the establish- 

 ment of a gardeners' fund for the relief of the widows and families of deceased 

 gardeners. 



About this time, Mr. Loudon formed his first acquaintance with me. My father 

 died in 1824, and finding, on the winding up of his aS"airs, that it would be neces- 

 sary for me to do something for my support, I had written a strange, wild novel, 

 called "The Mummy," in which I had laid the scene in the twenty-second century, 

 and attempted to predict the state of improvement to which this country might 

 possibly arrive. Mr. Loudon chanced to see the review of this book in the Literary 

 Gazette, and as, among other things, I had mentioned a steam-plough, it attracted 

 his attention, and he procured the work from a circulating library. He read it, 

 and was so much pleased with it, that he published, in the Gardener^s Magazine 

 for 1828, a notice of it under the head of " Hints for Improvements ;" and he had 

 from that time a great desire to become acquainted with the author, whom he 

 supposed to be a man. In February, 1830, Mr. Loudon chanced to mention this 

 wish to a lady, a friend of his, who happened to be acquainted with me, and who 

 immediately invited him to a party, where she promised him he should have the 

 wished-for introduction. It may be easily supposed that he was surprised to find 

 the author of the book a woman ; but I believe that, from that evening, he formed 

 an attachment to me, and, in fact, we were married on the 14th of the following 

 September. 



Immediately after our marriage, Mr. Loudon began to rewrite the Encydopcedia 

 of Gardening, which was published in the course of the year 1831. On the 1st 

 of October, 1830, he published the first part of a work, in atlas folio, entitled 

 " Illustrations of Landscape Gardening and Garden Architecture ;" but, from the 

 very expensive nature of the work, and the limited number of subscribers, he found 

 it necessary to discontinue it, and it did not proceed beyond the third part, which 

 appeared in 1833. In the beginning of the year 1831, he had an application to 

 lay out a botanic garden at Birmingham, and he agreed to do it merely on the 

 payment of his expenses. On this occasion I accompanied him, and after spend- 

 ing about six weeks in Birmingham (which, though it is my native town, I had 

 not seen for several years), we made a tour through the North of England, visiting 

 the lakes in Cumberland and Westmoreland. It was at Chester that we saw a 

 copy of Mr. Paxton's Horticidtural Register, the first rival to the Gardeiier's 

 3Iagazine, which, at the time we were married, produced £750 a year, but which 

 gradually decreased from the appearance of the Horticidtural Register till the 

 period of Mr. Loudon's death, immediately after which it was given up. 



After visiting the beautiful scenery in Westmoreland and Cumberland, we passed 

 through Carlisle, and entered Scotland by way of Longtown and Langholme. It 

 happened that there was a fair at the latter place, and the town was so exceedingly 

 full that they not only could not give us a bed, but we could not even find a place 

 to sit down. When we entered Ayrshire, the county to which Mr. Loudon's family 

 ally belonged, he was received with public dinners at Ayr and Kilmar 

 blic dinner was also preparing for him at Glasgow ; but while we were stay 



