amateurs of pardeninpr, and was, no donbt, the means of inspirin|:r a taste for the 



])ursiiit iti many who had heforc bfcn imlifioront to it. " In an nrt so nnivorsally 

 ]iractisoii as j:;ar(leuiiit:;, and uiu^ (Uiily uiidoi'f^oiiip so mia-h iiiipnnemeiit," Mr. 

 Lovuhm ol)serves, "a f>:rcat many ot'Ciirroiices must take ))hice worthy of bcinj^ 

 rcfordod, not oidy for tlie entertainment of gardeninj]^ readers, Init for tlie instruc- 

 tion of practitioners in the art." That this work met tlic wants of a lurpe class 

 of readers, is evident from four thousand copies of the first number havinpf been 

 sold in a few days ; and from the work having continued })opular for nineteen 

 years, and, in fact, till its close at the death of its conductor. 



The Gardener''s Mafjnzine first appeared quarterly, afterwards it was published 

 every two months, and finally every month. The second number of this work 

 contained an attack on the TiOndon Horticultural Society, the affairs of which were 

 then notoriously ill-managed, though, before the publication of The Gardener''s 

 Macjazine, no one had ventured to complain of them jniblicly. In the same num- 

 ber appeared an article on the " Self-Education of Gardeners," in which Mr. Loudon 

 began those earnest exhortations to gardeners to improve themselves, and those 

 efforts to put them in the way of self-improvement, which he continued almost to 

 the last hour of his life. He also, in this second number, gave a plan for the 

 improvement of Kensington (jrardens, and suggested the erection of "small stone 

 lodges with fireplaces at the principal garden gates, for the comfort of the door- 

 keepers in winter," as, before that time, the door-keei)ers had no shelter but the 

 alcoves ; and he proposed that at least once a week a band should play in the 

 Gardens, and that the i)ublic should be able to obtain the convenience of seats, as 

 in the public gardens on the Continent. In the third number of the Magazine, 

 he began a series of articles on " Cottage Economy," and invited young architects 

 to turn their thoughts to the erection of cottages, as well for laborers as for garden- 

 ers, which should be not only ornamental enough to please the gentlemen on whose 

 grounds they were to be erected, but comfortable to those who were to live in them. 

 These hints were followed up by many gentlemen : and I think I never saw Mr. 

 Loudon more pleased than when a highly respectable gardener once told him that 

 he was living in a new and most comfortable cottage, which his master had built 

 for him — a noble marquess, who said that he should never have thought of it, but 

 for the observations in Mr. Loudon's Gardener^s Magaziyie, as they made him 

 consider whether the cottage was comfortable or not, and that, as soon as he did 

 so, he perceived its deficiencies. In the fourth number of the Gardener''s Maga- 

 zine, the subject of the reform of the Horticultural Society w^as resumed, and it 

 was continued in the succeeding numbers till 1830, when the desired result was at 

 length effected. 



Both in the early volumes of the Gardener''s 3far/azi}ie and in the Encyclopaedia 

 of Gardening, Mr. Loudon had strongly advocated the necessity of having garden 

 libraries, and, in the second volume of the Gardener''s Magazine, he gave a list 

 of books he considered suitable for a garden library, in which he included the 

 Encychpcedia of Plants and the Hortus Jlritannicus — works then written, though 

 they took so long in printing, that they were not published till two or three years 

 afterwards. It is very gratifying to find that numerous garden libraries were 

 established in different parts of the country, in the course of two or three months 

 after they were first suggested in the Gardener''s Magazine, and that several letters 

 appeared, from working gardeners, on the advantages and improvement which they 

 had received from the books they thus obtained access to. 



{To he concluded.^ 



