xxxiv 



PROCEEDINGS OE THE 



vide the labourer with the means of improving his condition, and 

 secure to him as an irrefragable right, what alone offered a pro- 

 spect of keeping him from the workhouse when unemployed by the 

 farmer, and from the beershop when disposed to be idle, was an 

 object worth every effort on the part of the rector ; and in 1849, 

 by dint of his indomitable moral courage and determination, he 

 succeededin establishing no fewer thanfifty quarter-acre allotments 

 in the parish. For several years the battle raged, but with the 

 aid of one or two staunch supporters — honourable exceptions to 

 the mass — he overcame all difficulties, and finally almost tripled the 

 number of allotments. Throughout the whole of this agitating 

 period Professor Henslow preserved not only a calm, but a con- 

 ciliatory bearing : he announced himself from the first as a cham- 

 pion of the rights of the poor, sought no quarter himself, but 

 gave it liberally to all the vanquished ; he printed and circulated 



was contained in a separate phial of water, and two or three hundred or more, 

 all fully labelled, were arranged along the wall in wooden shelves drilled for their 

 reception. The prizes awarded to the most successfid field botanists were now 

 brought out for distribution. They were of three classes — botanical boxes, 

 pocket lenses, and cases of forceps. The little villagers received their philoso- 

 phical instruments with a shrewd appreciation of the use of them, and brought 

 them to bear on a dissection of the products of the day with the dexterity of a 

 Hooker or a Lindley. The forceps was lifted to separate the sepals and petals, 

 the lens to examine the number of pistils and stamens, and class, order, and 

 genus were determined by the competing botanists in a moment. c They beat 

 my Cambridge boys,' said the Professor. ' We don't trouble ourselves here 

 about the Artificial system of botany ; we jump smack to the Natural.' One 

 little girl had detected a species of reed grass new to her. It was new, as occur- 

 ring in this locality, to the Professor. It was new even to his own private her- 

 barium, and rare in all England. A liberal pinch of white snuff from Pandora's 

 box was the welcome reward. The girls were now examined as to the general 

 characters of plants. A specimen was held up and systematically pulled to 

 pieces, and the questions put were promptly answered in the course of the dis- 

 section. All we can ourselves remember is a lifting of the forceps, a quizzing 

 through lenses, a general consultation and whispering, and the simultaneous 

 echo now and then of such words as { tctradynamous,' • hypogynous,' ' polypeta- 

 lous,' ' syngenesious,' and the like, learned out of a printed formula, which, 

 owing to the assistance of the bountiful goddess hereinbefore mentioned, had 

 proved much easier to them than the multiplication table. ' They beat my 

 Cambridge boys hollow,' again remarked the Professor, with a smile. In con- 

 clusion, all kneeled down on the clean brick floor, to repeat a short prayer to 

 the gracious Civer of plants that open out spring lessons for intelligent minds, 

 and we went out thoroughly impressed with the importance of nature-teaching, 

 (vi) in Ihis sefjuc-t cred pastoral spot. We would have given the world at that 



moment for some claim to a shave fa the blessing that followed the Reverend 

 Pro&tsor home to the Rectory." 



