
          Recd. [Received] March 24th 
Ans. [Answered] Oct. 25th

Penn Yan March 16th 1837

Dr. Sir

With a good deal of pleasure I receive from you a letter
and a short time after a packet of to me new rare 
and interesting plants. I should have answered your communication
long since, but for a long sickness by which 
I was disabled about two months. Not long since I wrote to
Gray & you probably heard from me through him. You
mention the probability of visiting this part of the country next
season. It would afford me much gratification to see you here
and ramble with me through our swamps and vales & marshes. 
I will with pleasure render my assistance in obtaining some
of the plants of this region if health and business will at any
rate permit me. You say that in course of the winter you will
send me a list of such as you desire. The list has not been
received, undoubtedly owing to my want of punctuality in answering
your letter & sending you a list as per request of some
of the rare and interesting plants of this region, with notice 
of their time of flowering, &c., and observation as their characters
when they differ from the description in the books. I will append 
a list of a few that are rare and interesting to me, but whether 
plants rare in this region may not be common in your section
I cannot tell. Again, many plants that I have collected I can
trace to no particular locality. When I began to collect plants it
was solely to make an herbarium of plants in my own neighborhood, 
and if I obtained a single specimen it was all I wished and I 
paid no attention to locality. I have many that are desirable, but
no recollection where they came from. After I fell in with Aikin
and Gray, and made exchanges &c., I made more collections, and since
        