68 



auxiliary appliances of chemical reagents to which of late 

 years so much attention has been paid. These remarks 

 suggest but a few of the problems which are awaiting 

 a thorough solution. With the remembrance of the import- 

 ance of these problems fresh in our minds we may ask our- 

 selves what are we individually doing as our contribution 

 tow^ards the attainment of the desired results. 



With a few noble exceptions I fear the answer to this 

 question is alike unsatisfactory to us as men of Manchester 

 and as Englishmen. We do not pursue wide and ])rolonged 

 researches and work them out to their ultimate issues, in 

 the way that is done by the naturalists of France and Ger- 

 many. This remark is especially applicable to the subject 

 of Vegetable Physiology. When I take up a number of the 

 Annates des Sciences Natwrelles and see such magnificent 

 physiological memoirs as have been supplied by men like 

 Mohl and Trecul, Van Tieghem and Nageli, Hofmeister and 

 Tulasne, I cannot but ask myself what have we English- 

 men to show as our contributions, to this series. I do not 

 forget that our countryman Robert Brown was the grandest 

 figure in the group of pioneers in these researches ; but upon 

 Avhom has his mantle fallen ? We fear that no one has 

 risen up amongst us capable of receiving it. The defective 

 standard of which I complain is further shewn in the 

 Physiological text-books with which we Englishmen are 

 satisfied. Excellent and useful as the Manuals of Henfrey, 

 Balfour, and Oliver may be, they bear no comj^arison to the 

 noble "Lerbuch" of Sachs; a volume which is as rich 

 in the facts which it records as it is profound in the 

 philosophy which it seeks to expound. I know not 

 what the cause of this unsatisfactory state of the higher 

 departments of study in England may be. Something is 

 doubtless due to the fact that we are all more or less engaged 

 in a feverish race after the material comforts of life, which 

 do not, in the same degree, tempt oui" Continental brethren 



