The period referred to was, in round numbers then, fully one hundred years ago. No records are extant as to what was actually done here at that time, but the general fact that botany was ardently engaged in is well established. Old Crowther, who was born in 1768, was accustomed, when only nine years of age, to attend the meetings of a botanical society at Eccles, numbering, on the average, forty members,--the first society, in all likelihood, that was formed by the young Linnæans, and the same, it may be concluded, as that which in 1790, or thereabouts, had spread to Ashton, Oldham, Middleton, and many other places, holding fixed monthly meetings at the several towns and villages in rotation, and with which the proper "historical era" of botany in Manchester may be said to commence. The business of the meetings was to compare the floras of the several neighbourhoods, and to exchange plants and information in general on subjects connected with botanical science. A library of practical service was formed at a very early period. The members subscribed, and bought among other books the "Systema Naturæ," and "Species Plantarum," of Linnæus; Withering's "British Plants," and Lee's "Introduction to Botany," exchanging the volumes with one another on the days of meeting, and for several years everything went on pleasantly and usefully. With the close of the century, however, owing to infractions of the rules, the meetings were discontinued, and the society was abruptly dissolved. But death is everywhere the spring and herald of life. Though for a time there was no regular society, meetings continued to be held in a more private way, and, as generally happens after an interregnum, new and better principles of management were introduced, resulting in the formation of those numerous and excellent local societies which started botany afresh, and several of the best of which are still at work. The late venerable John Mellor, of Royton, near Oldham, is generally considered to have laid the foundation of the new school. Associated with him were the celebrated John Dewhurst, first president of the collective meetings, and George Caley, well known to the scientific as the botanist who accompanied Sir Joseph Banks to the South Seas. The society which lays claim to primogeniture is that at Middleton, or, at all events the Middleton _District_ Society. Its former president, the late Mr. John Turner, possessed a letter written from Australia in 1800, in which Caley warmly acknowledges his obligations to the members, as having first given him a love for plants. The Mottram Society is also of long date, having celebrated forty-four anniversaries.[25] To make this matter of relative age more intelligible, it may be observed that the local societies group themselves into "districts," and that the name of a local society is sometimes the same as that of a district society. For instance, the Ashton-under-Lyne district takes in Ashton, Stalybridge,