
          New York-- 28 Mar. 1848


 My dear friend--


 This morning brings me your welcome letter
 of yesterday, & 5 days since I received the package of Frémont [John Charles Frémont]
 plants, for which accept my most sincere thanks. They are very
 highly valuable to me, & I am most glad that the parcel turned
 up so opportunely, for the worms were beginning their ravages
 in many places, but happily had not proceeded far in their
 nefarious business. It was right & fitting that Drs. [Doctors] Gray [Asa Gray] & Hooker [William Jackson Hooker]
 should be "helped before me" & I am the last to object to such
 an arrangement having been made, feeling only too thankful
 & gratified that any remained for myself. The other folio
 of your carices [Carex] was duly delivered to me by Mr. Holton [Isaac F. Holton],
 & is safely tied up with the rest, for sooth to say-- I have
 not as yet touched one of them! I wanted to go through
 with the Kooskoosky [i.e. Kooskooskie River] plants first, but the illness & death
 of Mrs. Depeyster (Mrs. S.T.C. [Samuel Thomas Carey]'s mother) took me off from
 my work for some time, & subsequently my mornings
 have been much occupied by superintending the repairs
 of brother Sam's new house-- so that, in good truth, I have
 done very little Botany; & the less from the fact that I
 myself, have been, & continue to be, in very poor health.
 I believe I have gone as far as Onagraceae (in the order
 of your Fl. [Flora]) & proposed to study them to the end of Compos'ae [Compositae].
 The remainder I shall merely pillage, & return to you
 in the order in which I have arrayed them, perhaps
 with numbers, in some instances, where I wish to remark
 upon them. How soon do you want them? & How
 shall I send them to you? Sam, will move house,
 I suppose, in about 3 weeks (the 3d. week in April, perhaps)

        