282 A DECADE OF WORK A T 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. HOOKEB. 



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. I am 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 ahnost irretrievably with debt. On 

 my return from Europe in the autumn of 1839, I 



