558 Arboretum Britannicum. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. AHBOHETUM BMTAHmiCUM ; 



Portraits from Nature, to a Scale of a Quarter of an Inch to a 

 Foot, qf all the Trees and Shrubs which endure the Open Air in 

 Britain, qf the Size which they attain in Ten Years in the Neigh- 

 bourhood of London ; and Botanical Figures in Flower, and in Fruit 

 or Seed, of most Species. The Letterpress will contain Scientific and 

 Popular Descriptions qf all the Species figured ; Directions for 

 their Propagation and Culture; and Observations on their Uses in 

 the Arts, and more especially in Landscape- Gardening. 



By J. C. LOUDON, F.L.S. H.S. &c, Conductor of the 

 Gardener's Magazine, &c. 



To form Three Volumes 8vo, and to be published in Monthly 

 Numbers, at 2s. 6d. each. No. I. will appear on January 1. 1835. 



The above is the proposed title of a work on which we are 

 now engaged ; and which, though it will form a treatise complete 

 in itself, may be considered as the first Part of our Encyclojicedia 

 qf Landscape-Gardening. The object of this work is, to spread 

 a taste for foreign trees and shrubs, by showing their great 

 number and variety, their individual beauties and characteristics, 

 and the rapid growth of many species ; but, among all our 

 objects, that which is uppermost is, to show that there can be 

 no landscape-gardening in the natural or irregular style, where 

 only the indigenous trees of a country are employed. 



Hitherto it has been considered that the object of the land- 

 scape-gardener, in laying out grounds in the modern or natural 

 style, is to imitate nature, and to produce picturesque beauty. 

 The principle of the imitation of nature has been carried so 

 far, by some theorists, as to induce them to recommend the 

 production of fac-similes of wild scenery ; while others, who 

 do not go quite so far, would yet employ only, or chiefly, the 

 indigenous trees of the country in which the grounds to be laid 

 out are situated, in order that the woody scenery so produced 

 might be mistaken for such as is natural. There is not a single 

 writer, as far as we are aware, from Shenstone to Knight, Price, 

 and Gilpin, who does not adopt the imitation of nature as a prin- 

 ciple ; and who has not, at the same time, forgotten, or failed to 

 see, that, in so far as landscape-gardening is to be considered 

 one of the fine arts, the principle of the imitation of nature must 

 be rendered subordinate to that of the Recognition of Art. If 

 the imitation of nature were the sole principle of guidance, then 

 the perfection of park scenery would be, that it should be so 



