SIR WILLIAM'S CORRESPONDENCE 881 



struggles, hopes and castles in the air. Then came family 

 sorrows, with the appointment to Kew. 



Latterly his untiring efforts to get me on with the 

 Admiralty, India Office, Treasury, Woods and Forests, and 

 a host of Ministers, is quite bewildering. He thought far 

 more of me than of himself. 



These are mere hasty gleanings from 728 letters, which 

 to read carefully would take a good many months. To 

 typewrite them would cost a vast deal, and so many of 

 the letters have no interest, or deal with better forgotten 

 subjects, that they could not be intrusted out of the family. 

 There is nothing before 1809 or after 1851. 



The devotion to D. T. is quite touching throughout, 

 and D. T. was very useful to him in many ways. There are 

 large breaks in the correspondence and I suspect he gave 

 many letters that he should have kept to D. T., especially 

 from Ministers, about Kew and Glasgow College, and myself. 



The letter to your mother is being copied, it could not 

 be removed without breaking up the whole huge volume, 

 the binding of which is like iron. 



I shall look over my mother's letters to her father. 

 Unfortunately she left orders that all my father's letters 

 to her, indeed all her letters, were to be burnt. 



Yours ever affectionately, 



J. D. Hooker. 



To Mr. Duthie 



The labour of picking the materials from his huge 

 correspondence is very tedious. He was three years literally 

 bombarding the Government Officials before he captured 

 the Gardens — not till after the collections had been offered 

 first to the Horticultural Society, then to the Regent's Park 

 Gardens and been refused by both, upon which the Lord 

 Steward ordered the Cape and New Holland collections 

 to be destroyed ! and their houses to be occupied by vines. 

 They had a very narrow escape. 



To Inglis Palgrave 



September 25, 1902. 



The raking up of and co-ordinating his work has been 

 a very heavy job. He tried to do far too much without 



