(seq. 5)

W Chester Pa paid [20?]
Mar 2nd

Stephen Elliott, L.L.D. {Legum Doctor}
Charleston,
South Carolina

Dear S[ir]

I [loss] your favour of [N]ovember last —
and also a copy of your excellent address, delivered at the
opening of the Medical College, in Charleston: for which
I request you to accept my thanks.

Encouraged by your polite letter, I have taken the liberty
to enclose to you a long list of plants, which are described
in your Sketch of the Botany of the Southern States — and
of which, or any of which, I am very desirous to possess
specimens: But I beg leave to explain myself before you
form an opinion, as to the apparently exorbitant & unreasonable
extent of my desires. I am not so presumptuous
as to lay such a list of desiderata before you, with
a view to ask your attention to them all — much less
to tax your goodness with procuring them for me.
My ideas are simply these. I have long thought it
very desirable, for the interests of American botany,
that the plants of different and distant parts of the
United States should be brought together, in herbariums,
for the purpose of comparison, — and in order to as=
=certain whether we always mean the same things,
when we use the same names. A public herbarium,
for instance, might be formed in each of the four
great divisions of our Country — viz. in the Northern, Mid=
=dle, Southern, and Western States: and by a liberal cor=
=respondence, and exchange of specimens peculiar
to each region, it seems to me the project might
be accomplished with comparatively moderate labor
and expense. Its utility in rectifying errors, and
promoting a true knowledge of plants, — especially
among young Botanists, — would, I think, be very
great: and upon the younger class I would put the
principal labor of making such collections — relying
upon the more experienced for the prevention of mistakes.
So strong have my convictions become, on this head,
that I have engaged some gentlemen of this place
to embark with me in the attempt; and we