Abstract
THE names of J. C. Loudon and his wife Jane Loudon will always be remembered gratefully by gardeners. Such exhaustive publications as the “Encyclopaedia of Plants”, the “Encyclopaedia of Gardening”, and the “Encyclopaedia of Agriculture” led up to their culminating triumph, the “Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum”. This was published in sixty-eight parts between January 1835 and July 1838, so that it is approximately one hundred years since this typographical monument was given to the public. Mr. W. Roberts, writing on “The Centenary of Loudon's ‘Arboretum’ ” (J. Roy. Hort. Soc, 61, Part 7, July 1936), gives some interesting information about the methods by which the extraordinary amount of knowledge upon trees and shrubs was brought together. About three thousand questionnaires were circulated, in the days before the penny post, and Loudon received a very gratifying number of replies, the originals of which have been consulted by Mr. Roberts. Many of them bear striking testimony to the popularity of the Loudons, for invitations to stay at country seats were very numerous. An application to the Duke of Wellington resulted in his lordship mistaking the word Beeches for Breeches, and the signature for C. J. London. This he interpreted as from the Bishop of London, and accordingly dispatched the famous Waterloo breeches to that puzzled gentleman. The “Arboretum” and the other publications contain a great deal of information which is still of the greatest use at the present time. It is inevitable that the march of knowledge should add considerably to these solid foundations, but one feels that the £10,000 which the Loudons paid in amassing the knowledge and publishing the text of the “Arboretum” are still bearing handsome interest for the horticultural fraternity.
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A Landmark of Horticulture. Nature 138, 237 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138237c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138237c0