While adapted to give true pleasure, if looked for in a kindly spirit, no less fertile is our neighbourhood in materials for a large and practical culture of natural science. Most of the sciences may be cultivated by Manchester residents to perfection. For geology there are certainly fewer advantages than invite men to it in the neighbourhood of some other large inland towns. But what scope there is for botany and entomology is attested by the numbers of students of both these charming sciences who have adorned the ranks of our working men during the last half century.[1] Caley, Hobson, Crozier,[2] Crowther, Horsefield, among those no longer in this life; Percival, Carter, Evans,[3] still among us, have reflected honour upon Manchester as a spontaneous working men's college of natural history, such as might deservedly be envied by the proudest institution in the land. These men acquired their knowledge in the scenes we speak of, and from nature's "common things." The plants of the fields and hedgerows, the insects of the moors, were their inspiration and instruction, the source at the same moment of a thorough and pure delight; for while they are the least expensive of pleasures, the naturalist's are also the truest and most abiding. No one inexperienced in botany would imagine how many wild-flowers are found growing about Manchester. Taking the area which would be marked out by measuring a circle round the Exchange, fifteen miles from it in every direction, six hundred different species were catalogued in 1840.[4] Buxton's "Guide," printed in 1849, included one hundred and fifty others, mostly accidental omissions from the earlier list. Our own "Manchester Flora," 1858, in which everything is brought up to that time, contains over twenty more, though, in consequence of the diversity of opinion as to what plants should legitimately be included, the figures are probably much about the same as in the "Guide," namely, seven hundred and fifty. These seven hundred and fifty comprise the flowering plants, the trees, and the ferns. The number of mosses, fungi, lichens, and other flowerless plants, usually regarded as a separate subject of study, is in the aggregate probably quite as great, making a total of some one thousand five hundred perfectly distinct forms. Not that they are all equally abundant. We must distinguish between what botanists call the "Flora" of a given district, and its vegetation. The "Flora" may be large, and yet the mass of the vegetation consist of but few different kinds, the same plants repeated over and over again, as when hills are covered for miles together with heath and whortleberries. Such is the case with Manchester. Though there are seven hundred and fifty different kinds of flowers and ferns contained in our "Flora," probably not half the number go to constitute the general herbage of the district. Some species are very rarely met with, only once in the season perhaps.