SHEAR AND STEVENS: Ezra MICHENER 549 
promptly responded to if I could have found the thing. —Unfortunately the potato 
tops were gone before it arrived—and I waited to know whether any could still be 
ound—since which time I have been much from home oe mostly occupied with 
other cases. —An unusually wet season ha[s] produced an merge growth of o 
favorite plants—the Fungt—of which a large number hav[e] been collected Ste 
from the tone of thy last note peers date) I feel eee however reluctantly to 
decline sossonmnen ae them at prese 
which led me into the study of the fungi are a desire to supply 
a blank in the catalogue of Natural productions of Chester County, which, some of us 
contemplated —and while I could not obtain the means to determine all the species 
myself —I vainly hoped that my services as a collector of fungi, might entitle me to 
the assistance which I stood in need of in determining species. —Disappointed in this 
hope, I have but little inducement to prosecute the study much farther —yet there 
is a charm attending it which will probably [con]tinue as long as I'am able to pursue 
w is the review of Schweinitz progressing? I have been watching for it in 
assistance of your corrections during the exa 
“alee lb follow his numbering and labeling [two words blurred] out in the Synopsis 
Fungorum. — 
Sarath will be found specimens of a few of my back numbers which were 
marked as desiderata>— 
As heretofore 
thy friend 
M. A. CurtTis— E. MICHENER 
N. B.—Please write whenever convenient. — 
Curtis’s reply to this letter may be readily guessed at from 
another letter which Michener wrote several weeks later. This 
letter, which is without address, shows from the context that it 
was written to Curtis. 
[12] New GARDEN 28th of rst mo 1856. 
Dear frien 
Thine a the 8th instant was duly received. 
It was a knolwitidge of thy numerous en ngagements in the Mycological field — 
apart from ‘“‘ business” proper, w which has Seameeige led me to feel and to express a 
fear of trespassing too much upon thy time—and, so far as I can recollect, has pre- 
“impatience” of which 
commenced by saying — 
often.”” This was language 
my consequent course has been ta 
I will send remittances (as in 
the conditions laid down in the note referred to. vis. — 
as itt as\you please, only leaving the liberty to answer whe[n] I p 
next paragraph, of four lines, is somewhat blurred and ae omitted.] 
“Vou need not trouble yourself by sending me specimens 
which I thought could hardly be misunderstood, nor 
