LIFE OF JOHN C. LOUDON. 



undulations, hills, and steeps, and the soil contained considerable variety of loam, 

 clay, and light earth, on limestone and red rock. It was, however, subdivided in 

 a manner the most unsuitable for arable husbandry, and totally destitute of car- 

 riage roads. In every other respect it was equally unfit for northern agriculture, 

 having very indifferent buildings, and being greatly in want of draining and 

 levelling." At this place he established a kind of agricultural college for the 

 instruction of young men in rural pursuits ; some of these, being the sons of 

 landed proprietors, were under his own immediate superintendence ; and others, 

 who were placed in a second class, were instructed by his bailiff, and intended for 

 land-stewards and farm-bailiffs. A description of this college, and of the improve- 

 ments effected at Great Tew, was given to the public in 1809, in a. pamphlet en- 

 titled " The Utility of Agricultural Knowledge to the Sons of the Landed Proprie- 

 tors of England, and to Young Men intended for Estate-Agents ; Illustrated by 

 what has taken place in Scotland. With an Account of an Institution formed 

 for Agricultural Pupils in Oxfordshire. By a Scotch Farmer and Land-Agent, 

 resident in that County." In this pamphlet there is one passage, showing how 

 much attached he was to landscape-gardening, an attachment which remained 

 undiminished to his death ; and how severely he felt the misfortune of having his 

 knee become anchylosed from the effects of the rheumatic fever before alluded to. 

 The passage, which occurs in the introductory part of his work, is as follows : " A 

 recent personal misfortune, by which the author incurred deformity and lameness, 

 has occasioned his having recourse to farming as a permanent source of income, 

 lest, by any future attack of disease, he should be prevented from the more active 

 duties and extensive range of a beloved profession on which he had formerly been 

 chiefly dependent." 



Notwithstanding the desponding feelings expressed in this paragraph, Mr. 

 Loudon appears, from his memorandum books, to have been still extensively 

 engaged in landscape-gardening, as there are memoranda of various places that he 

 laid out in England,Wales, and Ireland, till the close of 1812. Before this period 

 he had quitted Tew; and finding that he had amassed upwards of 15,000/. by his 

 labors, he determined to relax his exertions, and to gratify his ardent thirst for 

 knowledge by travelling abroad. Previously, however, to doing this, he published 

 two works: one entitled "Hints on the Formation of Gardens and Pleasure- 

 Grounds, with Designs in various Styles of Rural Embellishment ; comprising 

 Plans for laying out Flower, Fruit, and Kitchen Gardens ; and the Construction 

 and Arrangement of Glass Houses, Hot Walls, and Stoves ; with Directions for 

 the Management of Plantations, and a Priced Catalogue of Fruit and Forest- 

 Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Plants ; the whole adapted to Yilla Grounds from 

 One Perch to One Hundred Acres in Extent;" and the other, " Observations on 

 laying out Farms in the Scotch Style adapted to England." 



In the first of these works, the subjects enumerated in the title page are fully 

 discussed ; the second contains many interesting particulars respecting the farm 

 of Great Tew rented by himself, and those of Wood Hall and Kenton Lane rented 

 by his father. From this work it appears, that, though Mr. Loudon, Senior, 

 enjoyed but a few months' health after settling at Wood Hall, which he entered 

 upon at Michaelmas, 1807, his death taking place in December, 1809, the estate 

 was so much improved, even in that short period, that it was let after his death 

 for a thousand pounds a year, being three hundred pounds a year more than he had 

 paid for it. It also appears that Mr. Loudon entered on the farm at Great Tew at 

 Michaelmas, 1808, and left it in February, 1811 ; General Stratton paying him a 

 considerable sum for his lease, stock, and the improvements he had effected. 



{To he continued.) 



