To get to the Ashley meadows, go by the railway to Bowdon, then along the "Ashley Road" for about a mile, and then down the lane on the left hand, which leads to Mr. Nield's model farm. After passing through the field by the farm, there is seen a small wood upon the right, in which are many beautiful treasures, and descending a little, we are in the meadows, the Bollin flowing at the farther edge, and the mill, with its weir and water-wheel, at the extremity. The very earliest spring flowers to be gathered here are those of the hazel-nut, the willow, the alder, and the poplar. People unacquainted with botany often suppose that the latter and other timber-trees belong to the flowerless class of plants. They fancy that flowers occur only upon fruit-trees, and upon ornamental shrubs, such as the lilac and laburnum. The mistake is a perfectly natural and excusable one, seeing that the established idea of a flower is of something brilliant and highly coloured. A visit to the Ashley meadows in the month of April soon shows that there are other flowers than these. The hazel is by that time overblown, being in perfection about February; but the other trees mentioned above are covered with their curious blossoms, which in every case come out before the leaves. Those of the alder and poplar resemble pendent caterpillars, of a fine brownish red; the willow-blooms are in dense clusters, green or lively yellow, according to their sex. For plants, like animals, have sex, and though in most cases male and female co-exist in the same flower, it happens with some, especially with the timber-trees of northern latitudes, that the flowers are of only one sex, some of them being male and others female. Occasionally the entire tree is male only or female only--the condition of the willow and the poplar, the yellow flowers of the former of which are the male, and the greenish ones the female. On the hedge-banks below these trees may be gathered the dogs' mercury, an herbaceous plant of distinct sexes, readily recognised by its dark green, oval, pointed leaves. Soon after the appearance of these, the banks and open sunny spots become decked with the glossy yellow blossoms of the celandine, a flower resembling a butter-cup, but with eight or nine long and narrow petals, instead of five rounded ones. Mingled with it here and there is the musk-root, a singular but unpretending little plant, green in every part, and with its blossoms collected into a cube-shaped cluster, a flower turned to each of the four points of the compass, and one looking right up to the zenith. The roots, as implied in the name, have the odour of musk. On the moister banks, such as those at the lower edge of the wood, grows also the golden saxifrage, a pretty little plant, with flat tufts of minute yellowish bloom. Yellow, in different shades, prevails to a remarkable extent among English wild-flowers, and especially those of spring. The rich living yellow of the coltsfoot is a conspicuous example. The coltsfoot flowers, like those of the poplar tree, open before the leaves, enlivening the bare waysides in the most beautiful manner, or at least when the sun shines; for so dependent are they upon the light, that it is only when the sun falls warm and animating that they expand their delicate rays, slender as the finest needle, and reminding us, in their elegant circle and luminous colour, of the aureola round the head of a saint in Catholic pictures. At first sight, the coltsfoot might be mistaken for a small dandelion. It is easily distinguishable from that despised, but useful plant, by the scales upon its stem, the stalk of the dandelion being perfectly smooth. The leaves and flowers of the dandelion open, moreover, simultaneously. The coltsfoot, like the flower it imitates, holds high repute among the "yarb-doctors," who know more of the genuine properties of our native plants than it is common to give them credit for.