pages 184-185

184                 Illustrations of Lancashire

anthus. These early growers would doubtess for a time be shyly looked upon as aliens. Nothing is known definitely of the work of the ensuing century, but there is certain proof that by 1725 Lancashire had already become distinguished for its "florists' flowers," the cultivation lying almost entirely "in the hands of the artisans, who have never for an instant slackened, though today the activity is often expressed in new directions.
lt is owing, without doubt, to the example of the operative Lancashire gardeners of the last century and a half that floriculture at the present moment holds equal place with classical music among the enjoyments also of the wealthy; especially those whose early family ties were favourable to observation of the early methods. More greenhouses, hothouses, and conservatories; more collections of valuable orchids and other plants of special beauty and lustre exist in South Lancashire, and especially in the immediate neighbourhood of Manchester, than in any other district away from the metropolis. Orchid culture was practised here, as in Macclesfield and Birmingham, long before what orchids are was even a question in many parts. The name of one of the noblest species yet discovered, the Cattleya Mossiæ, commemorates an old Liverpool merchant, Mr. John

Peculiarities                185

Moss, one of the fnrst to grow these matchless flowers; while in that of the Anguloa Clowesii we are reminded of the beautiful collection formed at Higher Broughton by the Rev. John Clowes, which, after the decease of the possessor, went to Kew. A very remarkable and encouraging fact is that orchids, the queenliest and most fragrant of indoor flowers, can, like auriculas, with skilful management be brought to the highest possible state of perfection in an atmosphere in which many plants can barely exist - the smoky and soot-laden one of Manchester. The proof was supplied by the late Dr. R.F. Ainsworth of Cliff Point, to whom flower-show honours were as familiar as to Benjamin Simonite of Sheffield, that astonishing old florist whose auriculas are grown where the idea of a garden seems absurd.
These very practical proofs of the life and soundness of the poetic sentiment in working Lancashire prepare us for a county feature in its way quite as interesting and remarkable - the wide-spread and very deep-seated local taste for myth, legend, and superstition, which, in truth, is no other than the poetic sentiment uncultured and gone astray. Faith in "folk- lore" is by no means to be confounded with inane credulity. The folk-lore of a civilised