64 
LOUDON'S ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 
Seldom do we encumber our pages with notices or reviews of any horticultural 
works, unless they contain some facts, precepts, or suggestions, of a highly interest- 
ing and valuable nature. In the volumes we have now the pleasure of introducing 
to the attention ot our readers, all these recommendations are combined ; and that 
in a comparatively unexampled degree. 
Much as we admire and prize many of the previous publications of this estim- 
able and talented author, we know of none in which he has so successfully fulfilled 
the task undertaken, as in the one now under consideration. It is composed of 
four octavo volumes of letter^press, and an equal number filled with octavo and 
quarto engravings of the principal exotic trees described. It would be tedious, as 
well as useless, to enumerate the various articles, in the history, description, and 
culture of ligneous plants, which are treated of in this comprehensive work. We 
will merely observe that every particular which the most devoted patron of arbori- 
culture, or the most ardent admirer of trees could desire, is therein faithfully, fully, 
and graphically detailed. Of all the more valuable species, an excellent engraving 
either of the whole tree, a branch, a leaf, or the fruit, is inserted, from which their 
general character may be ascertained ; while the admirable portraits of entire trees 
which appear in a detached portion of the work, will tend to establish the high 
character of the artists by whom they were delineated, and greatly enhance the 
utility and interest of the whole. 
As a work of general reference for the culture of indigenous and hardy or half 
hardy exotic trees and shrubs, but especially the two latter ; as a guide to the 
selection of the most ornamental, the means for procuring them, and the appropriate 
method of treatment ; as an invaluable preceptor in planting, thinning, pruning, 
and otherwise managing, all kinds of shrubberies and forests ; in short, as a com- 
pendious cyclopaedia of every thing pertaining to these, the most gigantic, durable, 
and useful of animate but non-locomotive natural productions ; the Arboretum et 
Fruticetum Britannicum stands unrivalled. We refrain from offering any remarks 
on the subject generally, as we propose inserting a few observations in a subsequent 
number. 
It is impossible to give any extract from the body of the work without, in some 
way or other, mutilating it and impairing its interest ; so that we shall merely 
append the following judicious suggestions on hybridising and grafting arboreous 
plants, with a view to render them more ornamental, and refer the reader to the 
book itself, particularly that section of it under which Ooniferous plants are 
arranged. The following passage is taken from the Introduction to the work, 
the whole of which is written in the author's usual perspicuous and spirited style, 
