
                                                                West Chester, Penn. May 8. 1843


 My dear Sir,


                       On the 26th [?] I received your valued favor
 consisting of a parcel containing a copy of [illegible] Memoir
 on the [Meliaceae?], with a number of interesting specimens of
 plants from Arkansas, included - and your letter of the
 14th March & 14th April: for all which I beg you to accept
 my sincere thanks.  The specimens (41 in number) were all highly
 acceptable, and 22 of them were new to our collection.
 The duplicates will assist me in paying my debts to two or three
 European Correspondents, to whom I am under heavy obligations
 of that kind.  I find myself getting so in arrears, with
 exchanges, that I do not feel comfortable under it: and
 I have lately declined several offers to exchange plants
 from an unwillingness to contract debts which I cannot
 hope to pay.  My other engagements prevent me making col:
 lections, and my advancing age, also, indisposes me to those
 harboring excursions which I once delighted to make.  I
 am, therefore, always grateful even for interesing dupli:
 cates which may enable me to pay debts already contracted.
 I have got our Herbarium arranged according to
 Endlicher's Genera; and have proposed an alphabetical
 catalogue of the Genera & Species - which enables me to
 turn to any plant, in the collection, with great facility.
 For still greater convenience, I have affixed to each Genus,
 in the catalogue, the number which it bears, in Endlicher;
 and to each species, the vol. and page, of Dc Prodromus, or of
 the N. American Flora, as far as the same are published &
 of the Labiatae & Gramminaeae, I have referred to the page, in
 Bentham & {Kunth?], where the description may be found.
 In this way, the Herbarium will be very easily consulted,
 in connection with the descriptions; and I hope will be 
 found useful, hereafter - provided any one shall be
 sufficiently interested in it, when I am gone, to study it,
 and keep it in order.  Our collection now contains about

        