[Illustration: Entrance to the Botanic Garden, Manchester.]
Manchester is distinguished among the large towns of the kingdom for
its majority of enlightened individuals. "The whole population," it
has been pertinently observed by a native, "seems to be imbued with a
general thirst for knowledge and improvement." Even amidst the hum of
its hundreds of thousand spindles, and its busy haunts of industry,
the people have learned to cultivate the pleasures of natural
and experimental science, and the delights of literature. The
Philosophical Society of Manchester is universally known by its
excellent published Memoirs: it has its Royal Institution; its
Philological Society, and public libraries; so that incentives to this
improvement have grown with its growth. Among these is the Botanical
and Horticultural Society, formed in the autumn of 1827, whose primary
object was "a Garden for Manchester and its neighbourhood." Previously
to its establishment, Manchester had a Floral Society, with six
hundred subscribers, which was a gratifying evidence of public taste,
as well as encouragement for the Garden design.
We find the promised advantages of the plan thus strikingly
illustrated in an Address of the preceding date, "The study of Botany
has not been pursued in any part of the country with greater assiduity
and success than in the neighbourhood of Manchester. Far from being
confined to the higher orders of society, it has found its most
disinterested admirers in the lowest walks of life. Though to the
skill and perseverance of the cottager we are confessedly indebted
for the improved cultivation of many plants and fruits, an extensive
acquaintance with the choicest productions of nature, and a
philosophical investigation of their properties, are very frequently
to be met with in the Lancashire Mechanic. But whilst some knowledge
of the principles of Horticulture is almost universal; and the
inferior objects of attention are readily procured, it is obvious that
the difficulty and expense which attend the possession of plants of
rare, and more particularly of foreign growth, form a natural and
insurmountable obstruction to the researches of many lovers of the
science...." "Whatever regard is due to the rational gratifications
of which the most laborious life is not incapable, there is a moral
influence attendant on horticultural pursuits, which may be supposed
to render every friend of humanity desirous to promote them. The most
indifferent observer cannot fail to remark that the cottager who
devotes his hours of leisure to the improvement of his garden, is
rarely subject to the extreme privations of poverty, and commonly
enjoys a character superior to the circumstances of his condition. His
taste is a motive to employment, and employment secures him from the
temptations to extravagance and the natural consequences of dissipated
habits."[1] Further, we learn, one great object of the society is to
educate a certain number of young men as gardeners. As "an inviting
scene of public recreation," it is observed, "those who are little
interested in the cultivation of Botany, and who may regard the
employments of Horticulture with disdain, may still be induced to
frequent the Botanical garden, for the beauty of the objects, the
pleasures of the society, and the animating gaiety of the scene."
[1] How pleasingly is the substance of these observations embodied
in one of our "Snatches from _Eugene Aram_:"--"It has been
observed, and there is a world of homely, ay, of legislative
wisdom in the observation, that wherever you see a flower in a
cottage garden, or a bird at the window, you may feel sure that
the cottagers are better and wiser than their neighbours." Vol. i.
p. 4. Yet with what wretched taste is this morality sought to be
perverted in an abusive notice of Mr. Bulwer's _Eugene Aram_, in
a Magazine of the past month, by a reference to Clark and Aram's
stealing flower-roots from gentlemen's gardens to add to the
ornaments of their own. The writer might as well have said that
Clark and Aram were fair specimens of the whole human race, or
that every gay flower in a cottage garden has been so stolen.
The Manchester Garden, we should think, must, by this time, have an
Eden-like appearance. The Committee began fortunately. Mr. Loudon, in
one of his valuable Gardening Tours,[2] refers to "a few traits of
liberality in the parties connected with it; the noble result, as we
think, of the influence of commercial prosperity in liberalizing the
mind. Mr. Trafford, the owner of the ground, offered it for whatever
price the Committee chose to give for it. The Committee took it at its
value to a common farmer, and obtained a lease of the 16 acres (10
Lancashire) for 99 years, renewable for ever at 120l a year." He
describes the donations of trees, plants, and books, by surrounding
gentlemen, as very liberal. Mr. Loudon does not altogether approve of
the plan, and certainly by no means of the manner in which the Garden
has been planted, yet he has no doubt it will contribute materially to
the spread of improved varieties of culinary vegetables and fruits,
and to the education of a superior description of gardeners. He
commends the hothouses, which have been executed at Birmingham;
especially "the manner in which Mr. Jones has heated the houses by hot
water; though a number of the garden committee were at first very much
against this mode of heating. Mr. Mowbray (who planned the Garden)
informed us that last winter the man could make up the fires for the
night at five o'clock, without needing to look at them again till the
following morning at eight or nine. The houses were always kept as
hot as could be wished, and might have been kept at 100° if thought
necessary. A young gardener, who had been accustomed to sit up half
the night during winter, to keep up the fires to the smoke flues
(elsewhere) was overcome with delight when he came here, and found how
easy the task of foreman of the houses was likely to prove to him, as
far as concerned the fires and nightwork."
[2] Gardeners' Magazine, No. XXXIII. August, 1831.
As a means of social improvement, (a feature of public interest, we
hope, always to be identified with _The Mirror_,) we need scarcely add
our commendation of the design of the Botanic Garden at Manchester,
and similar establishments in other large towns of Britain. What can
be a more delightful relaxation to a Lancashire Mechanic than an hour
or two in a _Garden_: what an escape from the pestiferous politics of
the times. At Birmingham too, there is a Public Garden, similar to
that at Manchester, where we hope the Artisan may enjoy a sight at
least of nature's gladdening beauties.
In the suburbs of our great metropolis, matters are not so well
managed; though Mr. Loudon, we think, proposes to unite a Botanic with
the Zoological Gardens. Folks in London must study botany on their
window-sills. The wealthy do not encourage it. Their love of the
country is confined to the forced luxuries of kitchen-gardens,
conveyed to them in wicker-baskets; and a few hundred exotics hired
from a florist, to furnish a mimic conservatory for an evening rout.
They shun her gardens and fields; but, as Allan Cunningham pleasantly
remarks in his Life of Bonington: "Her loveliness and varieties are
not to be learned elsewhere than in her lap. He will know little of
birds who studies them stuffed in the museum, and less of the rose and
the lily who never saw anything but artificial nose-gays."[3]
[3] Family Library, No. XXVII.
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