
          Any aid which you can give us in selecting a suitable person will be thankfully accepted.

How comes [?] the "Flora of North America"? I am sorry that a change in my situation and a consequent pressure of engagements, should have prevented me from sending you more specimens of our plants, and [?] completing my catalogue of plants growing in Middle and Western Virginia. I have collected specimens of nearly all and was arranging them, when the resignation of [?] threw a new set of duties [?] me, and a degree of labour, which made it impossible for me to give any further attention to Botany. I hope, however, in a year or two to find some lesiure again for that delightful pursuit. By that time I trust that your work will have appeared in its first edition. And I should be much gratified to give you some little aid in filling up deficiencies for the second edition. I was in the days of my late botanical enthusiasm contemplating the proposition of a memoir on the physical history and geopgraphy of this my nature land - "The loveliest land on the face
        