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autumn to make it. The fields have a most delightful verdure, and 

 the gardens are in the highest beauty, being covered with great variety 

 of autumn flowers, having not had the least frost to Oct. 4. I have 

 housed none of my succulent exotics ; for the weather is so hot, dry, 

 and fine, they are better abroad than in the house. I survey my gar- 

 den with raptures, to see the infinite variety with which the great 

 Creator has enriched the vegetable world.' 



" ' Ridgeway-house, on Mill-hill, ten miles North of London, March 

 16, 1767. — I am here retired to a delightful little villa, to contemplate 

 and admire, with my dear Linnaeus, the unalterable laws of vegetation. 

 How ravishing to see the swelling buds disclose the tender leaves ! 

 By the public news-papers we were told that with you in Sweden 

 the Winter was very severe, the Sound being frozen over. I have no 

 conception of the power of that cold which could fetter the rolling 

 ocean in icy chains. The cold was what we call severe, but not so 

 shai-p as in the year 1740. It lasted about a month, to the 21st of 

 January, and then the thaw began and continued. February the 1st 

 and 2d were soft, warm, sunny days, as in April, and so continued, 

 mild and warm, with southerly winds, all the month. This brought 

 on the Spring flowers. Feb. 8th, the Helleborus niger made a fine 

 show ; the Galanthus and Winter Aconite by the 15th covered the 

 garden with beauty, among some Crocuses and Violets, and Primula 

 veris, &c. How delightful to see the order of Nature ! oh, how obe- 

 dient the vegetable tribes are to their great Lawgiver ! He has given 

 this race of flowers a constitution and fibres to resist the cold. They 

 bloom in frost and snow, like the good men of Sweden. These flowers 

 have some time made their exit ; and now, March 7th, a tenderer 

 tribe succeeds. Such, my dear friend, is the order of Nature. Now 

 the garden is covered with more than 20 different species of Crocuses, 

 produced from sowing seeds, and the Iris Persica, Cyclamen vernale, 

 and Polyanthos. The 16th March, plenty of Hyacinthus caeruleus 

 and albus in the open borders, with Anemonies ; and now my favour- 

 ites the great tribe of Narcissuses, shew all over the garden and fields ; 

 we have two species wild in the woods that now begin to flower. 

 Next the Tulipa precox is near flowering ; and so Flora decks the 

 garden with endless variety, ever charming.' 



" The editor of the ' Correspondence,' Sir J. E. Smith, adds the 

 following remarks, written by a friend to whom he had submitted the 

 letters of Mr. Collinson : — 



" * I have edified much on the subject of the Springs, which appear 

 at that time to have been much milder than at present. We have, 

 now, for many years, had hard Winters occasionally, and an almost 



