Country Rambles. 



gratification of high-flown and artificial wants, connected 

 in large measure with the idea of pounds, shillings, and 

 pence. It is found in the culture of love for common 

 things, the untaxed game that no man can deprive us of, 

 and which constitute the chief part of the beauties of the 

 country. Hence the worth of nature to the poor. If 

 the rich have their gardens and hothouses, here are 

 flower-beds and parks, fresh from God's own hand, with- 

 out money, and without price, and greater than the 

 estates of all the nobles in the kingdom. Hence, too, 

 coming close to home, we may see how little reason we 

 have to lament the absence of the grand and wonderful, 

 since nothing less than total nakedness of surface can 

 take from a place its power to interest and please. 



While adapted to give true pleasure, if looked for in a 

 kindly spirit, no less fertile is our neighbourhood in 

 materials for a large and practical culture of natural 

 science. Most of the sciences may be cultivated by 

 Manchester residents to perfection. For geology there 

 are certainly fewer advantages than invite men to it in 

 the neighbourhood of some other large inland towns. 

 But what scope there is for botany and entomology is 

 attested by the numbers of students of both these charm- 

 ing sciences who have adorned the ranks of our working 

 men during the last half century.* Caley, Hobson, 

 Crozier,f Growth er, Horsefield, among those no longer 



* i.e. since, in round numbers, about 1810. 



+ Father of Mr. Robert Crozier, president, since 1878, of the Man - 

 chester^Academy of Fine Art. 



