326 JOHN BARTRAM TO [1742-3. 



I had read before ; but now, by thy favour, I have them my 

 own ; before, I borrowed them. As for Lobel, I had his long 

 ago. There is little in him, but collections from others ; but I am 

 obliged to thee for thy good will, in sending them. But I had 

 rather thee had sent Tournefort's third book of his Complete 

 Herbal, or Botanical Institutions, in English, which I very much 

 want ; having never seen it, nor know not where to borrow it. 



I have now sent thee, by friend Willing, a box of curious 

 flowering plants, in earth. One root of Yucca, I slipped off one 

 of my old roots, in the spring, and planted it for thee, which I 

 now send. It grows eight feet high, with near a hundred flowers 

 upon one stalk. Thee will also receive a fine collection of seeds, 

 of our best flowering wild plants, with my remarks upon each par- 

 ticular. 



JOHN BARTRAM TO DOCTOR COLDEN.* 



January 16th, 1742-3. 



Respected Friend : 



If I had not had some acquaintance with thy person and thy 

 disposition, I should be apt to think thee could hardly believe the 



* Cadwallader Colden was born in Scotland, February 17, 1688. Having 

 received a liberal education, he next applied himself particularly to Medicine and 

 Mathematics, and was distinguished for his proficiency in both. Allured by the 

 fame of William Penn's Colony of Pennsylvania, and also by some expectations 

 from an aunt residing in Philadelphia, he came over to this Province in the year 

 1710, where he practised physic for some years with considerable reputation, and 

 then returned to England, which he found greatly distracted in consequence of 

 the troubles of 1715. After a short residence there, he married a young lady of 

 a respectable Scotch family, by the name of Christie, with whom he returned to 

 America, in 171G. Governor Hunter, of New York, conceived so favourable an 

 opinion of Doctor Colden, after a short acquaintance, that he became his warm 

 friend, and offered his patronage if he would remove to New York. In 1718, he 

 therefore settled in that city. He was the first who filled the office of Surveyor- 

 General in the Colonies. He received also the appointment of Master in Chancery. 

 In 1722, he was honoured with a seat in the Bang's Council of the Province, to 

 the head of which Board he afterwards rose by survivorship; and in that station 

 succeeded to the administration of the government, in 17G0. Previous to this, 

 Doctor Colden had obtained a patent for a tract of land, in the then county of 

 Ulster (now Orange), about nine miles from Newburgh ; and to this place, which 

 in his patent is called Coldengham, he retired with his family about the year 

 1730. There he undertook to clear and cultivate a small part of the tract, as a 

 farm ; and where his attention was divided between agricultural and philosophi- 



