420 JOHN BARTRAM [1761. 



These books contain all the small birds you were so good to send 

 me two or three years ago. 



Pray my kind respects to your father and all friends, and 

 accept the same yourself, from 



Your obliged friend and servant, 



George Ed/wards. 



College of Physicians, Warwick Lane, 

 London, November 15, 1761. 



JOHN BARTRAM TO WILLIAM BARTRAM, Sr., AT CAPE FEAR, N. C. 



December the 27th, 1761. 



Dear Brother : 



We have now very sharp weather : our navigation is quite 

 stopped. I sent thee a box of Plum suckers and young seedlings 

 of my English kinds, and wrote to thee, Billy, Dr. Green, and 

 the Governor, and delivered the letters into Captain Sharpless's 

 hands ; but whether he is got out, I can't say. He set out from 

 Philadelphia a little before the cold set in, and was to take some 

 loading in at Cohanzey. Cousin Billy is now at my house, where 

 I am glad to see him ; but he keeps very close to school. He tells 

 me you have a root you call Tanyers, which I have often heard 

 the Carolina people talk of.* I wish thee would put one or two in 

 a box of plants for me. 



We have had as healthy a fall as ever I knew, but now I am 

 afraid of mortal sickness. Two of my neighbours are to be buried 

 xo-day, by two or three days' sickness. 



I and most of my son Billy's relations are concerned that he 

 never writes how his trade affairs succeed. We are afraid he doth 

 not make out so well as he expected. I should be glad he could 

 gain credit, as Isaac and Moses have. They began with a little, 

 and have unexpectedly dropped into fine business fulfilled the 

 proverb, First creep, and then go. 



I have a great mind to drink, next fall, out of the springs at 

 the head of Cape Fear River and Pedee, if God Almighty please 

 to afford me an opportunity. 



* Tanyer (called Tallo or Tarro by the New Zealanders, the Arum esculentum, 

 Linn., or Colocasia esculenta, Schott.), is still cultivated occasionally in the gar- 

 dens of Southern States, for the sake of the cormus or tuberous rhizoma, -which is 

 used at table as a substitute for the potato and yam. 



