512 DOCTOR FOTHERGILL [1774. 



conduct has gained him esteem, and whose future usefulness to 

 community, I trust, will gain him deserved reputation. 



I am thy obliged friend, 



John Fothergill. 



London, 28tli 6 mo., 1774. 



Esteemed Friend : 



I received thy last favour, and am obliged to thee for thy kind 

 intention of looking out for a few more plants for me. 



I hope the glasses came safe, and were agreeable to thy orders. 

 I intended them as a compensation for thy endeavours to serve me, 

 and shall readily do what further thou may think needful, as an 

 equivalent. I have sent two more numbers of Miller's botanical 

 work ; and a treatise on Coffee, with an excellent coloured plate. 

 Nothing more of LinNjEUs's is yet translated ; when it is, I shall 

 not fail to send it. 



I shall hope to receive, by the autumn ships, some little addition 

 to my garden, as it may occasionally fall in thy way. I have most 

 of your usual plants ; but there are divers still unnoticed. I hope I 

 have a plant of your large Nymphcea ; but, for all that, I should 

 be exceedingly glad to have another. If seeds are sent, be kind 

 enough to crack the shells of some of them before they are put into 

 the mud they should be sent in. I find the shells are so hard, that 

 they will not give way to the embryo plant without this aid, at 

 least in this country. 



Look carefully after your Ferns. You have a great variety. I 

 have more American Ferns than most of my acquaintance ; but I 

 know you must have more, and various Polypodies, likewise. I am 

 reckoned to have the best collection of North American Plants of 

 any private person in the neighbourhood. I am obliged to thee 

 for many of them ; and shall readily make what acknowledgment 

 thou thinks proper, if I do not do it quite to thy satisfaction. 



When I sent the glasses away, I had not time to write a line to 

 anybody. As I am just retiring from this place, for a few weeks, 

 I may possibly get time to look over thy letters again, and get 

 leisure to acknowledge them more at large. Tell me wherein I 

 can make thee any suitable compensation, and I shall do it very 

 cheerfully : 



Being thy assured friend, 



John Fothergill. 



