;oo 
3ELF-INTSRUCTI0N FOR YOUNG GARDENERS 
deciduous trees. "Wo are informed that — 
•• Win n Mr. Loudon first arrived in London, 
he was very much struck with the gloomy 
appearance of the gardens in the centre of the 
public squares, which were then planted 
almost entirely with evergreens, particularly 
With Scotch pines yews, and spruce firs ; and, 
before the close of the year 1803, he published 
an article in a work called ' The Literary 
Journal/ which he entitled, ' Observations on 
laying out the Public, Squares of London.' 
In this article he blamed freely the taste 
which then prevailed, and suggested the great 
improvement that would result from banishing 
the yews and firs (which always looked 
gloomy from the effect of the smoke on their 
leaves), and mingling deciduous trees with the 
other evergreens. He particularly named the 
Oriental and Occidental plane trees, the 
sycamore, and the almond, as ornamental trees 
that would bear the smoke of the city ; and it 
is curious to observe how exactly his sugges- 
tions have been adopted, as these trees are 
now to be found in almost every square in 
London." — P. xiii. 
To our mind, it occurs, that if anything 
spoils the squares of London, it is the preva- 
lence of deciduous trees, which during the 
■winter months are black and gloomy beyond 
description. This, however, is so much a 
matter of taste and individual opinion, that we 
hardly ought to notice it. We proceed, there- 
fore, to other subjects. 
" During the greater part of the year 1S06 
Mr. Loudon w r as actively engaged in landscape- 
gardening ; and towards the close of that year, 
when returning from Tre-Madoc, in Carnar- 
vonshire, the seat of W. A. Madocks, Esq., he 
caught a violent cold, by travelling on the 
outside of a coach all night in the rain, and 
neglecting to change his clothes when he 
reached the end of his journey. The cold 
brought on a rheumatic fever, which settled 
finally in his left knee, and, from improper 
medical treatment, terminated in a stiffjoint ; 
a circumstance which was a source of great 
annoyance to him, not only at the time when 
it occurred, but during the whole of the re- 
mainder of his life." — Pp. xvii. xviii. 
The following is, perhaps, the most inter- 
esting part of Mr. Loudon's life, and shows 
how thoroughly indefatigable he was in all he 
undertook. It is a long extract, but important 
in all respects. 
" The Continent, after having been long 
closed to English visitors, was thrown open in 
1813 by the general rising against Napoleon 
Bonaparte, and it presented an ample field to 
an inquiring mind like that of Mr. Loudon. 
Accordingly, after having made the necessary 
preparations, he sailed from Harwich on the 
16th of March. He first landed at Gotten- 
burg, and was delighted with Sweden, its 
roads, its people, and its systems of education ; 
but he was too impatient to visit the theatre 
of war to stay long in Sweden, and he pro- 
ceeded by way of Memel to Konigsberg, 
where he arrived on the 14th of April. In 
this country he found everywhere traces of 
wars skeletons of horses lay bleaching in the 
fields, the roads were broken up, and the 
country houses in ruins. At Elbing he found 
the streets filled with the goods and cattle of 
the country people, who had poured into the 
town for protection from the French army, 
which was then passing within two miles of 
it ; and near Marienburg he passed through a 
bivouac of 2,000 Russian troops, who, in their 
dress and general appearance looked more 
like convicts than soldiers. The whole of the 
valley between Marienburg and Dantzic he 
found covered with water, and looking like 
one vast lake ; but on the hills near Dantzic 
there was an encampment of Russians ; the 
Cossacks belonging to which were digging 
holes for themselves and horses in the loose 
sand. These holes they afterwards covered 
with boughs of trees, stuck into the earth, and 
meeting in the centre as in a gipsy tent ; the 
whole looking, at a little distance, like a 
number of huts of the Esquimaux Indians. He 
now passed through Swedish Pomerania ; and, 
on approaching Berlin, found the long avenues 
of trees leading to that city filled with foot 
passengers, carriages full of ladies, and wag- 
gons full of luggage, all proceeding there for 
protection ; and forming a very striking 
picture as he passed through them by moon- 
light. 
" He remained at Berlin from the 14th of 
May to the 1st of June, and then proceeded to 
Frankfort on the Oder. Here, at the table 
d'hote, he dined with several Prussian officers, 
who, supposing him to be a Frenchman, sat 
for some time in perfect silence : but on hear- 
ing him speak German, one said to the other, 
' He must be English ;' and, when he told 
them that he came from London, they all rose, 
one springing over the table in his haste, and 
crowded round him, shaking hands, kissing 
him, and overwhelming him with compliments, 
as he was the first Englishman they had ever 
seen. He then proceeded through Posen to 
Warsaw, where he arrived on the 6th of 
June. 
"Afterwards he travelled towards Russia, 
but was stopped at the little town of Tykocyn, 
and detained there three months, from some 
informality in his passport. When this diffi- 
culty was overcome, he proceeded by Grodno 
to Wilna, through a country covered with the 
remains of the French army, horses and men 
lying dead by the road-side, and bands of wild- 
looking Cossacks scouring the country. On 
