1757.] T0 JANE COLDEN. 401 



and it keeps company with the choicest correspondence, Euro- 

 pean letters.* 



The Viney plant thee so well describes, I take to be the Diosco- 

 rea of Hill and Gronovius ; though I never searched the cha- 

 racters of the flower so curiously as I find thee hath done ; but 

 pray search them books, thee may presently find that article. 



I should be extremely glad to see thee once at my house, and to 

 show thee my garden. My Billy is gone from me to learn to be 

 a merchant, in Philadelphia, and I hope a choice good place, too 

 (Captain Childs). I showed him thy letter, and he was so well 

 pleased with it, that he presently made a packet of very fine draw- 

 ings for thee, far beyond Catesby's, took them to town, and told 

 me he would send them very soon. I was then in a poor state of 

 health ; but am now well recovered. We very gratefully receive 

 thy kind remembrance, and my two dear friends, thy father and 

 mother. I want once more to climb the Katskills ; but I think it 

 is not safe to venture these troublesome times. 



I have had several kinds of the OocJdeata, or Snail Trefoil, and 

 Trigonella, or Fenugreek; but, being annual plants, they are gone 

 off. The species of Persicary thee mentions, is what Tournefort 

 brought from the three churches, at the foot of Mount Ararat. 



The Amorpha is a beautiful flower; but whether won't your 

 cold winters kill it ? 



If the Rhubarb from London be the Siberian, I have it. I had 



the Perennial Flax, from Livonia. It growecl four feet high, and 



I don't know but fifty stalks from a root ; but the flax was very 



rotten and coarse. The flowers were large and blue. It lived 



many years and then died. 



John Bartram. 



john bartram to b. franklin. f 



July 29th, 1757. 



Dear Benjamin : 



I now take the freedom of thy usual benevolence, and favour of 

 thy wife, to inclose this letter in hers ; hoping this way we may 



* That letter, however, which would now be read with so much interest, is 

 among the missing ; as well as those from Linnjeus, and many others. 



f Benjamin Franklin was horn in the year 1706, and died on the 17th of 

 April, 1790, aged eighty-four years and three months. No intelligent reader on 

 either side of the Atlantic, will require to be informed of the history or career of 

 Doctor Franklin. 



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