The Cotterill portion of the Bollin valley, while the primroses are in bloom, has no parallel in our district. Certain distant places, no doubt, are equally rich in this general favourite--the Isle of Wight, for instance, and the same is said of the Isle of Man, but for Manchester lovers of primroses, Cotterill is a very paradise. All the woods and lanes are full, every bank and sheltered slope is yellow with them, everywhere primroses, primroses, primroses, great handfuls, and bunches, a score every time we pluck, till wonder is exhausted and out of breath, and primroses and nature seem to mean the same thing. Such was the spectacle on the 8th of May--when this was written--the glow of bloom, which lasts in the whole perhaps for a month, being then at its height. On one occasion it was as early as April 27th. We now come to 1882. So great has been the havoc made by collectors of roots for gardens, and for sale in the market-place, that except in forbidden parts, and somewhat higher up the valley, the primrose is now almost as scarce as at the time referred to it was plentiful. Great havoc has also been wrought during the last quarter of a century by the mattock of the farm-labourer, which has likewise diminished very considerably the ancient abundance of some of the less common plants, where exposed, such as the goldilocks and the forget-me-not, though higher up the valley, like the primroses, these are still to be found in fair quantity. Never mind: the anemones, the golden celandine, so glossy and so sensitive, the cuckoo-flowers, the marsh-marigold, and a score of others, are untouched, and will remain untouched. There is something a great deal better than simple possession of the rare and strange, and that is the happy faculty of appreciation of the lovely old and common,--a faculty that needs only culture to become an inexhaustible mine of enjoyment. Every man finds himself richer than he imagines when he puts the real value upon what Providence has given him.