*:T. 39.] TO JOHN TORREY. 371 



On Monday I made another visit to Kew Gardens, 

 (a grand affair) to show the lions of the place to four 

 or five young Americans I knew, one of them young 

 Brace, 1 J.'s cousin, who is making with two friends a 

 pleasant and profitable pedestrian excursion in Eng- 

 land. 2 I cannot begin to tell you the half we have 

 done and seen in England, but we were most busy : 

 Saturday, conversazione of Royal Botanical Society in 

 Regent's Park. Wednesday, excursion with Linnsean 

 Club to Hertford ; saw a great Pinetum, 600 species 

 of Coniferse, etc., and the Panshanger Oak. (I wrote 

 Carey a few words of this.) Thursday, a most pleasant 

 day with Hooker. Miss Hooker looks quite well ; all 

 send their love to you, all most kind and sweet to us. 

 Hooker has altered little, but looks older. Brown 

 looks older perhaps, but decidedly stronger, is as 

 healthy as possible and very lively. In talking with 

 him and showing him about it he gave up about Kra- 

 meria, and said I must be right. He formerly une- 

 quivocally referred it to Polygalaceae. Bennett is 

 large and fat. I fear he does not work hard enough. 



Yesterday we came down to Dover early in the 

 afternoon (a striking place), and embarked late in the 

 evening on steamer for Ostend, which we reached 

 early this morning ; came right on to Bruges, which 

 listless and very curious old-world town, and its curi- 

 osities, we have all day been exploring, till six o'clock, 

 when we came on twenty-eight miles further by rail- 

 way to the famous and more lively town of Ghent, 

 where I have been running about till the dusk arrived, 



1 Charles Loring Brace, son of J. P. Brace. Eminent as founder 

 of the Children's Aid Society, New York. 



2 The result was published in Walks and Talks of an American 

 Farmer in England, written by his companion, Frederic Law Olmsted. 



