John C. Loudon, Esq, 369 



JOHN C. LOUDON, ESQ. 



The, works of Mr. Loudon are so well known in this coun- 

 try — his name is so closely connected with the sciences of 

 Horticulture and botany — and there is so much of interest and 

 profit in a knowledge of the man himself, and of his career, — 

 that a short account of his life may most properly fill a few of 

 our pages. We believe, too, that familiar as are his books 

 to the American public, not many are aware of the trying 

 circumstances under which they were written. 



Mr. Loudon was born on the 8th of April, 1783, at Cambus- 

 lang, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. His father was a respectable 

 farmer, who died early, leaving to his widow the care of a 

 numerous family of children, of whom the subject of this sketch 

 was the eldest. Mr. Loudon was educated as a landscape 

 gardener, and in 1803 went to England, with numerous letters 

 of introduction to some of the first landed proprietors in the 

 kingdom. He afterwards took a large farm at Tew, in Ox- 

 fordshire, where he resided in 1809. Whilst there, he printed 

 anonymously one of his earliest works, "A Treatise on the 

 Culture of Wheat.'* In the years 1813-14-15, he made the 

 tour of northern Europe, traversing Sweden, Russia, Poland, 

 and Austria; in 1819, he travelled through Italy; and in 

 1828, through France and Germany. 



Mr. Loudon's career as an author began in 1803, when he 

 was only twenty years old, and continued, with very little 

 interruption, during the space of forty years. His first works 

 were, " Observations on laying out Public Squares^ published 

 in 1803, and on "Plantations," in 1804; "^ treatise on 

 Hot-houses," in 1805, and on " Country Residences," in 1806, 

 both quarto; "Hints on the Formation of Gardens," in 1812, 

 and three works on Hot-houses, in 1817 and 1818. In 1822, 

 appeared the first edition of the "Encyclopaedia of Garden- 

 ing," a work remarkable for the immense mass of useful mat- 

 ter which it contained, and for the then unusual circumstance 

 of a great number of wood-cuts being mingled with the text. 

 This book obtained an extraordinary sale, and fully established 



