NOVEMBER 219- 



books and periodicals to landscape gardening and green- 

 house cultivation, for pleasure and beauty alone, and for 

 the ornamentation of the houses of the wealthy, must have 

 been immense. But from that time the books assumed 

 the deteriorated character from which they are only now 

 beginning to emerge. Cheapness became a desirable 

 object necessary for the propagation of the instruc- 

 tion. This change greatly enhances the interest and 

 value of the older books. The illustrations only served 

 to elucidate the text, and in the case of coloured plates 

 several plants were often crowded into one page for the 

 sake of cheapness in reproduction. The gardener was 

 no longer a botanist and an artist, but employed inferior 

 draughtsmen to illustrate his instructions. 



The original debt on the ' Arboretum,' published just 

 after Mr. Loudon's death, was 10,000/., which seems a 

 very large sum, considering how poor the illustrations 

 are. It is a book of immense study, great interest, and 

 valuable instruction. The work is in eight volumes four 

 letterpress and four illustrations. 



1842. ' Ladies' Magazine of Gardening,' by Mrs. 

 Loudon, published just before Mr. Loudon's death, has 

 some rather good illustrations of flowers, some certainly 

 not commonly grown now. What she calls the Golden- 

 haired Anemone is quite unknown to me. The illustra- 

 tions for gardens and rockwork are elaborately descriptive 

 of all which should be avoided ; but in every book of the 

 period there is much for the student to learn. Failing 

 income induced Mrs. Loudon, no doubt helped by her 

 early efforts in literature, to publish books on gardening 

 for the use of amateurs. When she and her little 

 daughter were left very badly off, her efforts assumed a 

 more ambitious line. 



The first edition of ' The Lady's Companion,' which I 

 have, was published by William Smith in 1841. It is a 



