Old Lancashire Botanists. 195 



the neighbourhood, without question the most remark- 

 able in England. Every man of course has had his 

 own private and personal history, but the energies and 

 activities of each have been so closely intermingled with 

 those of his companions that the history is essentially 

 like that of a tree or a corporate body, not so much of 

 many things as of an organic whole. Many persons 

 have never so much as heard of these societies, though 

 assembling almost at their very doors. While the learned 

 and wealthy have been holding brilliant soirees and 

 conversazioni in lecture halls and royal institutions, meet- 

 ings have been going on among the weavers and other 

 craftsmen, quietly and unostentatiously, with aims exactly 

 similar, and success not inferior, and probably with ten- 

 fold more enjoyment to the bulk of those attending 

 them, because of its simplicity and earnestness. Should 

 the history of science in Lancashire ever come to be 

 written at length, it would be wanting in one of its most 

 interesting and important chapters were the proceedings 

 of these societies to be omitted, whether the members 

 who composed them were thought worthy of mention or 

 not. The sketch we propose to give must necessarily 

 be brief, but it will serve to indicate what a large amount 

 of real, practical scientific knowledge exists among the 

 workpeople of our district, and how superior these men 

 are to the mere herb-gatherers or "yarb-doctors" with 

 whom they have often been confounded, and who, though 

 useful in their way, constitute an entirely different class. 

 The study of botany by the operatives about Man- 



