
          Professor John Torrey; c [corner] of Prince & McDougal Sts. New York
Washington D.C. 13th January 1838, 1 PM.

[one line ink note] And Jan 25th

Dear Sir 
I write to you from the Room of the Committee on Agriculture of the H.R. [House of Representatives?] in the 3d story
of the central building of the Capitol with my specimens of herbaceous fibres & fibrous leaves displayed
around me, and with your favor of the 5th inst before me. Both that letter and the pamphlet in
which it came were not delivered to me until yesterday evening, and then with the expense of an exceess [excess?]
of postage of one dollar and fifty cents. You were not aware of two facts relative to the Post office
1st That even Members of Congress are not allowed to receive [free?] of postage any package of letters exceeding
two ounces in weight, & 2d That if a Pamphlet is hidden under a sealed envelope, the package pays
the postage of letters in proportion to weight. I do not mention this as a complaint of the past but to serve
for your consideration in the future and although we have the same in the Congress Library the same
No of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, I am not the less grateful to you for sending the pamphlet to me
and will return it to you shortly in safety. My letter dated at Indian Key, 30th Decbr from Charles
Howe Engr. I learn another manoeuvre of Mr. Prince. He says "I received a letter from them by this
Mail making inquiries who the venders [vendors] of seeds were and who had a Nursery of trees &c [etc.] on this Coast
I answered them that there was none; but that you was [were] only waiting for the termination of the Indian
War to establish upon a large scale a Botanical Garden & acclimating Nursery; and concluded by saying
that I was extremely sorry to hear you had not received the package addressed to their care but that
I still hoped it was not lost and that you would yet get it. I thought proper to give them a hint
upon the subject. Now it is truly provoking proviking, as much pains as I took unpacking, forwarding
and writing my agents in Charleston, writing also the Princes themselves, stating that I had sent
a package to their care for you - begging them as a special favor to see that you got it; paying the freight
myself from here to Charleston and requesting my agents to pay the same from Charleston to New York,
and to request their Agents in NY to forward the same immediately. What More could I have 
done than what I did do, and to whom could I have addressed them that wereso well known
as the Princes" de Mr Howe nevertheless offers to send on another package to my order
provided I can give him a sure and safe address and asks "Could you not get the names of the
Agents for the Line Packets in New York, and let me direct them to their care, and request them to
keep the same subject to your order?" What shall I saay to Mr Howe in reply? Cannot Mr Downings
Agent in New York adopt some safe and certain plans to receive seeds and plants via Charleston
from Indian Key? So much for the trickery of Mr Prince. Now for the immediate
subjects of your letter. 1st In reference to our Agave Virginica and [other?] indigenous Yuccas you
rightly infer I do not need repetition of copis of their botanical characters: but that I do wish
copies of every thing said by every book at least of our own authors, in relation totheir economical
properties and to their habits of growth and to the soils and situations they most prefer and to
the sites in which they exist and in which they are most abundant. Elliot says of the A.
virginica [Agave virginica] that "it grows in pinebarrens" a very important fact to me: but it would also be equally
important to know its Northern Limits and the degrees of Latitude & Longitude throughout
which it is found: yet he says nothing at all of the fibres of its leaves. Relative to the Yucca filamentosa
& Y. flaccida [Yucca flaccida] I have just recd [received] from Palmyra the following important facts "The Yucca filamentosa
withstands the Winters in the garden of David Thomas in Cayuga County N.Y. without protection, the leaves
remaining green and uninjured. Young seedling plants however were killed. It does not increase
readily by offsetts in the soil of that garden which is a rich clay loam. The Y. flaccida [Yucca flaccida], which
resembles the Y. filamentosas [Yucca filamentosas] as having the same thread like appendages, is perfectly hardy, grows well
and increases readily by offsetts.

J.J Thomas

[following in pen]
Agave grows in Arkansas.
Nuttall has also "Yucca recurvifolia?" He says that Y. augustif. [Yucca augustifolia]
grows on the MIssouri
        