Various - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 536, March 3, 1832

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 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. 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."

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 2 Gardeners' Magazine, No. XXXIII. August, 1831. 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 120 l 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."

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.