1786.] TO HUMPHRY MARSHALL. 559 



reducing the idea to practice. A calculation of the expense of the 

 undertaking would be very necessary to accompany it. [f your 

 leisure will permit you to digest such a plan, the Society will be 

 highly obliged by your doing it. 



I am, sir, respectfully, 



Your most obedient servant, 



Tim. Piokebujg. 



Philadelphia, December 18th, 1792. 



Sir: 



The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, on a re- 

 view of the communications which they have from time to time 

 received from the active friends of rural affairs, with pleasure 

 acknowledge the obligation for those with which they were fa- 

 voured by you. 



These communications have generally been published in the 

 newspapers. But, to render them more permanently useful, a 

 committee is now appointed, who, after a careful examination of 

 the whole, are to select such as they shall judge most useful, to be 

 published in a volume. 



A like selection will be made from other communications which 

 shall be received until the work shall be sent to the press. 



The Society proposing in future to make and publish similar 

 selections, as materials shall be furnished, request the continuance 

 of your aid in advancing the interests of Agriculture ; and that 

 you will forward, by post or otherwise, such information on the 

 subject as your inquiries and observation enable you to collect. 

 In behalf, and by order of the Society, 

 I am, sir, 



Your most obedient servant, 



Timothy Pickering, 



Secretary. 



SIR JOSEPH BANKS* TO HUMPHRY MARSHALL. 



London, Soho Square, April 5th, 1786. 



Sir : 



I wish to try some experiments upon curing the root of Ginseng, 



* Sir Joseph Banks, sprung from a family of Swedish origin, was born in 171.,, 

 at Revesby Abbey in Leicestershire, and educated at Eton and Oxford. His love 

 of travelling, and of Natural History, prompted him to explore foreign countries ; 



