;o2 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



London, and other men of eminence, from 

 whom no doubt he gathered much that in- 

 spired his pen in later years. His first pub- 

 lished book was '* Observations on the For- 

 mation and Management of Useful and Or- 

 namental Plantations, and on the Theory and 

 Practice of Landscape Gardening " and this 

 appeared in 1804, when he was only twenty- 

 one years of age. How many young men 

 of to-day have given the world such a work 

 at such an age ! 



Previous to this he had contributed an 

 article to ** The Literary Journal," criticising 

 the use of Scotch Pine and sombre Yew trees 

 in the parks and gardens of London as giv- 

 ing altogether too gloomy a character to the 

 landscape ; and also advising the planting 

 of the Thames embankment and Picadilly 

 with those strong fine Buttonwood trees, 

 which to-day are so essential to the attractive- 

 ness of those sections of the great metropolis. 



When not engaged in landscape designs, 

 Mr. Loudon wasted none of his precious 

 time ; he would either be engaged in writing 

 some article for a journal, or some book for 

 publication ; or he would be reading Greek 

 or Latin authors ; or he would give atten- 

 tion to his favorite pastime the practice 

 of painting, in which he was successful 

 enough to have one or two of his pictures 

 hung in the Royal Academy. 



In 18 1 3 Mr. Loudon visited Gottenburgh 

 in Sweden, to see Linnaeus, the great 

 father of Botany ; thence he journeyed 

 on to Berlin, to Riga and St. Peters- 

 burgh, "proceeding," says the Journal 

 of Horticulture, " he wended his way to 

 Moscow, on which journey he got fixed in a 

 snow storm. His horses were unable to ex- 

 tricate his vehicle, and judge of his conster- 

 nation when he saw his postillions unyoke 

 their horses and ride off^. He remonstrated; 

 he pleaded that he would surely fall a prey 

 to the roving wolves, or, if he escaped them 

 the awful cold would overcome him. He 

 was calmly told to go inside his vehicle and 



securely fasten the windows, upon which no 

 harm need be feared; and the drivers added, 

 as they rode off, that they would be back 

 early the next morning with extra horses. 

 And so they left Mr. Loudoij alone on a Rus- 

 sian waste, with a snowstorm in its fury 

 around him and the howls of the wild wolves 

 borne in ghoulish discord upon the scream- 

 ing winds. Well might he cower and dread 

 the worst; it would be a test to the nerves 

 of even the Great Duke, and the memory of 

 one moment in that awful night when a 

 pack of wolves crossed the road where he 

 was held was never forgotten during the 

 remainder of his life. Returning via Prague, 

 Dresden, Leipsic, Magdeburgh and Ham- 

 burg, the itinerant again landed in England 

 on the 27th of September, 1814." During 

 this long and interesting route of travel he 

 had sketched views of every place of any 

 gardening merit, and had, of course, 

 made copious notes, which are found 

 in his " Encyclopaedia of Gardening." 

 He had made himself known to most of the 

 leading scientists, and had been elected 

 Member of the Imperial Society of Moscow, 

 the Natural History Society of Berlin, the 

 Royal Economical Society of Potsdam, and 

 many others. 



The loss of his fortune, through an inse- 

 cure investment, added necessity to love of 

 work as an inspiration to his zeal, and in 

 addition to several books which he was 

 writing, he established in 1826 " Loudon's 

 Gardeners' Magazine," which was continued 

 until his death in 1843. 



He was married at the age of forty-seven 

 to Jane Webb, herself an authoress, and the 

 two were most congenial and devoted to 

 each other ; and to her we owe an excellent 

 memoir of his life written for his last work, 

 "Instruction for Young Gardeners," which 

 was not quite finished at the time of his sud- 

 den death. 



Perhaps his greatest work was the " Ar- 

 boretum et Fruticetum Britannicum,' which 



