
          Recd. Jany. 13th 1836
Arrd. Apr. 7th

Arlary 2 November 1835

My dear friend

Your letter and mine have a strange tendency to cross
each other en route, but better that than not to have a letter at all. Ere this
I presume you have received a letter I wrote containing some annotations on Cyperaceous
plants: I shall [added: endeavour to] devote the greater part of this to extracts relative to graminacae. 
But first allow me to thank you for the present for so I find it to be,
of the Caoutchouc Shoes. Had you allowed me to pay for them I would have
had less delicacy in troubling you again; but Mrs. Arnott has found them
occasionally so comfortable that I suspect I must get another pair even
on your own terms: My sister being in Edinburgh
precludes the possibility
of my getting the measure of her foot, unless by sending you that of my
own, and I believe that her foot (a rather uncommon thing for a Lady) is
almost the same. Thus my foot is 10 1/2 inches long over the stocking, and
without a shoe, so that Mrs. Bayleys is about 10 or not exceeding 10 1/4 inches
long. Mrs. Arnotts is exactly 8 8/10 inches long. I do not send you the circumference
across the instep, as I suppose these Kind of shoes are always made pretty large
in that respect so as to suit every one. (see the margin)
[crosswise in the left margin are distances labeled:
mine
supposed Mrs. Bayley's.
Mrs. Arnott's length of foot]

As to my letter of April last being three months in reaching you, I
believe I can partly explain the mystery. So far as I recollect there was no
very important intelligence in it, and I therefore gave it and a letter to
our friend Mr. Greene to my father-in-law, with a request that the first time
[crossed out: after] he went to Glasgow he would take them and give them to the Capt. of
some of the packets that sail from Glasgow: although he had been called
to Glasgow almost every fortnight previous to my giving them to him, I
afterwards understood that he had no occasion to go there for about six weeks
after: so that 6 weeks out of the three months the letters lay in his desk;
the remaining 6 weeks may be divided between the packet not sailing
immediately and [added: perhaps] a longish voyage.

I received the parcel safely which you sent through Dr. Hooker: it contained
some choice Alabama and Kentucky plants: and what is interested
me much was that they supplied me with the names to several of Drummonds.

Proceeding with your letter of the 22 Sept. seriatim, I come to speak of
Wights Duplicates; they are not all distributed yet, nor likely to be so for
some time: it is a very troublesome job, as there are about 30 receivers on
the list including [crossed out: illegible] ourself, and when there is a scarcity it requires some
little thought as to whose mouths are the first fed: it is the more trouble-some
as some were upon Dr. Wights list, others are friends of my own
whom Wight told me to give to even in preference to any of his if I saw
cause: but although all ^[added: the specimens] were put at my disposal, I do not wish to give
grounds to any of the old ones on the list to say that they are unjustly
superseded; and on the othe hand as I know that some whom I could
name deserve them much more and as I am to have the whole trouble
of distribution, I would act unjustly if I did not put at the bottom
of the list many whom Wight had put inter primates. One thing I am
amused at, that almost every one who applies for specimens recommends
himself on the ground that his herbarium is one of the largest in the
place and therefore very important, and inter alias, I am not quite sure
but a worthy friend of mine [added: called] Dr. Torrey gives his own recommendation in
the following words, "for my herbm [herbarium] is constantly referred to and is now the best in
our country." Although I have been born in a country where only part of the
motto "liberté et égalité" is applicable, yet I am sufficiently fond of the egalité
system as to say that in Botany as well as in money-matters, those who have
most require least: in other words I have a great tendency to give little or
nothing to those rich herbaria which are already too large for use, and of
which one half is not in order; and I do so because I have found my own
feelings again and again hurt at specimens being heaped upon such people
as Brown, Lambert, Hooker, etc. who must have plenty of the same already
if they would take the trouble to name them, whereas I and others whose
herbaria were comparatively small were neglected. I have therefore in 

        