THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 27, 1858. 
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(These “Hints for Improvements,” areas follows :— 
“ New Ideas. —In ‘ The Mummy,’ a tale of the twenty-second 
century, an attempt is made to predestinate the application of 
steam, and other modern improvements, which, whether in¬ 
tended in the way of ridicule, or effect, it may not be altogether 
useless to notice. A patent steam mowing apparatus is set to 
i work in a hay field, and the weather being foggy, the hay is 
dried with the use of a burning glass ! A field of barley, in a 
very dry state, is watered by the farmer, who, seeing ‘ a nice 
I black, heavy-looking, cloud sailing by,’ gets out his electrical 
machine, and draws it down in five minutes. Communica- 
) tions are held with every part of the world by means of tele- 
j graphs, and a private gentleman, whose son is engaged in 
battle in Germany, hears the result of an engagement a few 
minutes after it happens. A steam digging machine is 
mentioned ; cooking is effected by a chemical preparation, 
without the use of fire; it is the fashion for great people to 
have only one dish, and fricasees and ragouts are only devoured 
j by the canaille : beds are inflated with air instead of feathers ; 
j house servants, of every description, are poets, artists, and 
j philosophers ; water is turned into ice by mechanical pressure ; 
fog and vapour is turned into snow or rain at pleasure, by 
j withdrawing electricity ; all travelling is performed in 
balloons ; the tour of the whole world can be made in six 
weeks ; and great people, finding it so very easy to be trans¬ 
ported from one place to another, have left off travelling, and 
seldom leave their country seats. In a grand procession and 
ovation, celebrated in Black Heath Square, said to be the 
largest and finest square in the world, the air was thronged 
I with balloons, and with a variety of aerial horses, bestrode by 
city dandies, whilst others floated upon wings, or glided along 
on aerial sledges. ‘ The throng of the balloons was very dense. 
Some young city apprentices, having each hired a pair of wings 
for the day, and not exactly knowing how to manage them, a 
dreadful tumult ensued, and the balloons became entangled 
with the winged heroes and each other in inextricable con¬ 
fusion. The noise now became tremendous ; the conductors 
of the balloons swearing at each other the most refined oaths, 
and the ladies screaming in concert. Several balloons were 
rent in the scuffle, and fell with tremendous force upon the 
earth ; whilst some cars were torn from the supporting ropes, 
and others roughly overset. Luckily, however, the whole of 
England was at this time so completely excavated, that falling 
upon the surface of the earth was like tumbling upon the 
parchment of an immense drum, and consequently, only a deep 
hollow sound was returned as cargo after cargo of the demo¬ 
lished balloons struck upon it; some of them, indeed, re¬ 
bounded several yards with the violence of the shock.’ 
“The country is governed by an absolute queen, who is 
‘full of wild-goose schemes.’—‘Only imagine, Sir Ambrose, 
she showed me, this morning, a plan for making aerial bridges 
to convey heavy weights from one steeple to another ; a 
machine for stamping shoes and boots at one blow out of a 
solid piepe of leather; a steam-engine for milking cows ; and 
i an elastic summer-house, that might be folded up so as to be 
put into a man’s pocket! ’ 
“ Coal and other fuel having been long in disuse, smoke is 
unknown in London, and the English are the first sculptors 
in the world. The gardens of the nobility, who have town- 
houses, extend from the Strand to the Thames, and all of them 
are open to the public, Nothing in summer can be more 
enchanting than these gardens, filled with statues and beauti¬ 
ful originals; in winter, the Thames ‘ was frozen, and persons 
glided along it in glittering traineanx , or skated gracefully 
with infinite variety of movement; whilst every now and then 
steam-percussion-moveable bridge shot across the stream, 
loaded with goods and passengers, collapsing again the instant 
its burden was safely landed on the other side.’ 
“ There is a patent steam-book manufactory in Hatton 
Garden, where, also, quotations are cut, dried, and made up 
| into pills for the use of authors. Every regiment, ship, and 
private family has its philosopher as well as its chaplain and 
; surgeon. The government of England is an absolute monarchy; 
Ireland and Scotland are separate kingdoms ; the Catholic 
j religion is everywhere established ; the most enlightened part 
pf society believe in ghosts and goblins, and the reason given is, 
‘ because the extremes of ignorance and civilisation tend alike 
to produce predulity.’ 
“ The most extravagant and impracticable ideas will some¬ 
times aid in forming new and useful combinations ; and it is 
good to see the subject of scientific invention, and intellectual 
improvement, pushed to the extreme point, in order to show 
the absurdities to which everything human is liable to give 
rise.”) 
“ In February, 1830, Mr. Loudon chanced to mention his 
wish (to know the author of ‘ The Mummy ’) to a lady, a 
friend of his, who happened to be acquainted with me, and 
who immediately invited him to a party, where she promised 
he should have the wislied-for introduction. It may be 
easily supposed that he was surprised to find the author of 
the book a woman ; but I believe that from that evening he 
formed an attachment to me, and, in fact, we were married on 
the 14th of the following September. 
“ Immediately after our marriage, Mr. Loudon began to re¬ 
write ‘ The Encyclopsedia of Gardening,’ which was pub¬ 
lished in the course of the year 1831. On the 1st of October, 
1830, he published the first part of a work, in atlas folio, en¬ 
titled ‘ Illustrations of Landscape-Gardening and Garden 
Architecture;’ but, from the very expensive nature of the 
work, and the limited number of subscribers, he found it 
necessary to discontinue it, and it did not proceed beyond the 
third part, which appeared in 1833. In the beginning of the 
year 1831, he had an application to lay out a botanic garden 
at Birmingham, and he agreed to do it merely on the pay¬ 
ment of his expenses. On this occasion I accompanied him ; 
and, after spending about six weeks in Birmingham (which, 
though it is my native town, I had not seen for several years), 
we made a tour through the North of England, visiting the 
lakes in Cumberland and Westmoreland. It was at Chester 
that we saw a copy of Mr. Paxton’s « Horticultural Register,’ 
the first rival to ‘ The Gardener’s Magazine,’ which at the 
time we were married produced £750 a year; but which 
gradually decreased from the appearance of * The Horticul¬ 
tural Register,’ till the period of Mr. Loudon’s death, imme¬ 
diately after which it was given up. 
“ After visiting the beautiful scenery in Westmoreland and 
Cumberland, we passed through Carlisle, and entered Scot¬ 
land by way of Longtown and Langliolme. It happened 
that there was a fair at the latter place, and the town was so 
exceedingly full that they not only could not give us a bed, 
but we could not even find a place to sit down. We had a 
four-wheeled phaeton with only one horse, and, as we had 
ti a veiled from Carlisle that day, the animal was very much 
tired; it was also a serious annoyance to us, after having en¬ 
tered Scotland, to have to return twenty miles into England, 
as we were told we must do, Longtown being the nearest 
place where we were likely to obtain accommodation for the i 
ni ght. Fortunately for us, Mr. Loudon, having heard that 
Mr. Bell, who resided at \Y oodhouselec, only a few miles j 
from Langliolme, had a fine collection of American plants, de- j 
termined to call there, and ask permission to see them. We ' 
did so ; and, when Mr. Bell heard how we were situated, he 
most hospitably insisted on our staying at Woodhouselee all 
night, though we were wholly strangers to him. The next j 
day we proceeded through Gretna Green and Annan to 
Dumfries, in the neighbourhood of which we staid about ! 
threee weeks, spending part of the time at Closeburn with 
Mr. Loudon’s very kind friend Sir Charles Menteath, and ! 
part at Jardine Hall with Sir William and Lady Jardine. 
YVe afterwards staid at Munches and other seats in Dumfries¬ 
shire ; and when we entered Ayrshire, the county to which 
Mr. Loudon’s family originally belonged, he was received 
with public dinners at Ayr and Kilmarnock. A public dinner 
was also preparing for him at Glasgow ; but while we were * 
staying at Crosslee Cottage, near Paisley, the residence of 
Archibald Woodhouse, Esq., one of his most highly esteemed 
friends, he received a letter from Bayswater, informing him 
of the severe illness of his mother, and her earnest wish to see 
him. Mr. Loudon w r as warmly attached to his mother, and J 
as, unfortunately, we did not receive the letter till late at 
night, for we had been dining in the neighbourhood, we did 
not go to bed, but packed up everything, so as to be able to 
set off with daylight the next morning for Glasgow, where 
we left Mr. Loudon’s man with the horse and carriage, and 
proceeded to Edinburgh in the rain by coach, though we could 
only get outside places, and that Mr. Loudon had never ridden 
on the outside of a coach since his knee had become stiff, and 
he could not ascend the ladder without the greatest difficulty. 
