Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers. Leo H. Grindon
consumed the half of one’s time, or by a specially engaged conveyance, the expense of which compelled one’s excursions to be like the angels’ visits, few and far between. The railways, penetrating every nook and corner, now enable us to reach the very heart of the country in a very little while, fresh and nimble for our enjoyment, and, when over, the same will bring us home again. Honoured for ever be the name of Stephenson! It is in facilitating men’s intercourse with nature, and the purest and most ennobling recreations they can enjoy and are capable of, that the social blessings of railways have their highest realisation. Vast is their use to commerce, but still vaster their unreckoned friendship to health and healthy–mindedness. Now, also, there are more persons prepared to supply our wants in the way of “Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy tea.” Time was when the alehouse by the roadside, or the weary walk back to town, were the only choice open to our poor hunger and fatigue. But with the Saturday half–holiday, and the impetus it gave to rural visitings, there has sprung up a readiness on the part of country folks to open their doors in a hospitable spirit, which is quite tempting and delightful; and, most assuredly, nothing forms so pleasant a conclusion to an afternoon’s ramble as to sit down in a neat cottage to a comfortable farmhouse meal, with its huge broad piles of bread and butter, and inexhaustible store of green salad and new–laid eggs. There, with the sun shining aslant through the old–fashioned window, the doors open, and the breeze gently peeping in, the cows lowing in the pasture, and the very atmosphere redolent of the country, we realise the fine hearty pleasurableness of a good appetite, such as only the open air can induce, and learn the sweet savour of the plainest diet when wisely earned. And this not only because of the relish which comes of the exercise in the fresh air, but of the higher relish born of that mutual satisfaction and kind feeling which always follows a friendly visit to Dame Nature. People never feel more attached to one another than when they have been enjoying the charms of nature together; while the rose mounts to the cheek, the glow comes upon the heart. We should court nature therefore, not only for our own private and personal good, but if we would quicken our reciprocal affections. Especially with regard to this latter point, is it valuable to have some definite pursuit—something to attend to in particular when we go out for an afternoon’s or evening’s walk. A stroll in the fields is at all times good and healthful, but when two or three go out together to look for plants, or in search of curious insects, or to watch the movements, the manners and customs of the birds, quite unconsciously there get established new and pleasing links of sympathy, which lead to happiest results, both to head and heart. Some of the firmest friendships that we know of have had their origin in the exchange of ideas over a wild–flower. One of the noblest prerogatives of nature is to make men friends with one another. In the town we stand apart, excited and repelled by selfish and rival interests; but in the tranquillity of the fields and woods, united in delightful and invigorating pursuits, jealousies are forgotten, every man is an equal and a brother. Not the least useful end either, that flows from culture of love of the country, and particularly of some science having reference to natural objects, is the perennial employment it supplies for leisure hours at home. Half the mischief that boys commit comes of their having no intelligent and useful occupation for their playtime. As large a portion of the lax morality of their elders may be referred to the same cause. A naturalist never has any idle moments; if he be not at work in the country, he is busy with his curiosities indoors. Little private collections of natural objects, such as dried plants, insects, fossils, or shells, are always valuable, and always pretty, and a perpetual fund of interest and amusement. To gather together such things is not only highly instructive, and an agreeable pursuit, through the prolonged and intelligent observation which it demands; it is useful also as feeding the pleasure of possession—a noble and worthy one when well directed; and it has the yet higher recommendation of providing a diary and immortal record of past pleasures. A volume of dried plants, gathered on occasions of memorable enjoyment, becomes in a few years inexpressibly precious, an aid to memory, and thus to the perpetuity of those enjoyments, which even pictures give less perfectly, for here we have the very things themselves that were handled and looked at during those bright and fleeting moments. Such a volume of memorial–plants now lies on the table before us, spreading before the mind the souvenirs of forty years. In another part of this little book will be found instructions as to the method of commencing such collections. Meanwhile, we have cordially to recommend the idea to our readers, especially the young, and invite them to accompany us in these rambles.
CHAPTER II.
THE ASHLEY MEADOWS, AND THE LOWER BOLLIN VALLEY.
SPRING VISIT.
O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall
From Dis’s wagon!
Pale primroses
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength.
SHAKSPEARE.
THE part of the country round Manchester which supplies the greatest number of different wild–flowers, and of rare kinds in particular, is unquestionably the neighbourhood of Bowdon. Next in botanical interest come the Reddish valley, extending from Stockport to near Hyde, the Disley hills, and the delightful woods in the neighbourhood of Marple; and next to these again, and perhaps equalling them, Worsley, Tyldesley, the northern side of Prestwich, and the vicinity of Clifton. Bowdon, however, with the adjacent districts of Lymm and Cotterill, stands ahead of all. It holds precedence, too, in respect of its early seasons. While other portions of our district are scarcely giving signs of vernal life, at Bowdon the spring flowers are often open and abundant, and this quite as markedly in the fields as in the gardens. The former is the more valuable and interesting part of the testimony thus borne to the mildness of Bowdon, since the life of cultivated plants is always in some measure artificial, or under the influence of human direction, whereas the occupants of the hedgerows are pure children of nature. In the pleasant little nook called Ashley meadows, lingering with its very latest campanula and crimsoned bramble–leaf, Autumn seems hardly gone before Spring prepares to change all again and once more to green. Dunham Park offers nothing important for several weeks after the Ashley meadows have flowers to show. The total, indeed, of the botanical productions of the former place is not a fifth of what may be found within a mile of Ashley Mill. It is well to note this, because many people suppose that a scene delightful in its picturesque is correspondingly rich in wild–flowers. Generally, no doubt, it is so, since the picturesque in scenery is almost always connected with great unevenness of surface, precipitous descents, rocks, and tumbling waters, these usually coming in turn, of geological conditions, such as are highly conducive to variety in the Flora. But when the charm of a scene depends, not on cliffs and cataracts, but simply on the agreeable intermixture of differently–tinted trees, a gently undulating surface, sweet vistas and arcades of meeting branches, and the allurements held out to the imagination by green forbidden paths and tangled thickets;—then, as in Dunham Park, the primitive causes of floral variety being absent, the flowers themselves, though they may be plentiful in their respective kinds, are necessarily few as to distinct species. It does not follow that where the variety is considerable we are to look below the turf for the explanation. Meadows and pastures are always more prolific than ground covered with forest–trees (except, perhaps, in the tropics), the reason being partly that such trees offer too much obstruction to the rays of the sun, and partly that their immense and spreading roots block up the soil and hinder the growth of smaller plants. The Ashley meadows, after all, like all other places abounding in wild–flowers, are the miniature of a romantic scene. For in landscape, as in history, wherever we go, we have only the same ideas on a larger or smaller scale, the great repeated in the little, the little repeated in the great. Here is the mighty forest, clinging to the mountain–side; here the extended plain,