
          Philadelphia March 27th 1863


 Prof. John Torrey, New York


 My dear sir,


 I have received for you, from Mr. Des Moulins President of the Linnean Soc [Society]
 of Bordeaux, the inclosed publications, addressed to me with other matters, through
 the Smithsonian Institution. You will find in one of them an attempt, on my part
 to a monograph of the American Wines, intermixed rather too freely with abstracts
 from a copious correspondence I have had with that gentleman on the subject of
 American Vines & Wines. I regret exceedingly to see in print several of these abstracts
 which ought to have been considered as confidential.


 My first communication to Mr. Des Moulins having been read by him before
 the Agricultural Society of Bordeaux, brought to me, almost simultaneously, several
 letters from [crossed out : wine] Vine growers, asking for additional information and showing an evident
 apprehension of an approaching competition from the U [United] States to the Wines of France.
 Instead of answering each of these letters separately, I thought it would be much less trouble
 for me to condense in one paper all the information I could gather, and have
 this paper published, [?] publicum, in one of the French periodicals-and I 
 sent it to the Societe d'Acclimatation, for their Mensual Journal.


 As one of my objects in writing that popular essay was to assuage the apprehension
 of a pending competion, which I did not regard as being at hand, I asserted,
 among other reasons, that Americans in general did not relish the feeble and sour
 wines of France and that, as long as they would prefer dry wines, Juleps, Punches, cobblers &c &c
 the production of American Wines in imitation of the French Wines would be limited and
 harmless to their interest. In support of my proposition, I related several current anecdotes,
 such as that at page 62, which, even in a popular paper, was scarcely in good
 taste; but was quite unadmissible where Mr. Des Moulins has placed it.


 In preparing his papers from abstracts of my letters, Mr. D. has committed several
 errors and misplacements which you will easily find out, if you take the trouble to read
 them. I regret, my dear sir, not to have a copy of my original paper to present you;
 but, through the neglect of Prof. Decainse, who forgot to order a certain number of extra
 copies to be printed for me, I could not have had the chance to read it, were it not
 that the Academy o f N. Sciences receive, in exchange, the Journal of the Societe d'Acclim [d'Acclimatation].


 Please, my dear sir, receive this assurance of my most sincere regards
 Your obt [obedient] servant & friend. E. Durand
        