282 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. [1842, 
duction or Text-Book of Botany, for schools, lectures, 
private students (medical, etc.), which must be out 
on the 1st of May next. Owing to illness I have as 
yet written almost nothing, and besides have to super- 
intend all the drawings, as they must be made by 
a person unacquainted with botany; and at the same 
time I have to correct the proofs of about thirteen 
sheets yet of the ‘ Flora,” so that I am almost dis- 
tracted when I think how I am to accomplish it here, 
where I have to see personally to almost every detail. 
But I must do it, as I hope to lay the foundation for 
a popular and — what is of consequence to me—a 
profitable work. 
TO W. J. HOOKER. 
New York, 30th March, 1842. 
The last steamship left Boston so soon after I re- 
ceieved your kind letter that I was unable to answer 
it by that conveyance. I intended to send this by the 
Columbia steamer of the 2d prox.; but I learn that 
having broken her shaft in the outward voyage she 
is to sail back to England; when it comes to canvas 
I have more confidence in our old liners, and there- 
fore send by New York packet. 
Have you not seen or heard of Nuttall yet? He 
sailed for England on Christmas last, to take posses- 
sion of property left him by some deceased relatives. 
I should not feel a residence in Michigan as a ban- 
ishment. Iam fond of a country life. But at pres- 
ent I see almost no hopes of usefulness there. Like 
all our new, and some of our old States, they have 
squandered the means they once possessed and encum- 
bered themselves almost irretrievably with debt. On 
my return from Europe in the autumn of 1839, I 
