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Milwaukee Aug 6, 1856
Dear Sir
I have your favor of 3d inst. and am glad to learn that your fathers health is improving - please present to him my best respects & good wishes.
The Campanula is C. rotundifolia, the Hare (or Hair) Bell - It grows here & its origin with you is quite probably as you suggest. The radical leaves only as round.
The grass is Setaria glauca, a weed spread over much of the world. If it will keep the chinch bug away from more valuable plants it may yet prove to have some use! -
What you say of the Silphium laciniatum is new to me. I supposed its very coarseness & roughness would be repulsive to horses as well as other animals. But let me have a copy of your article when published.
I have about concluded an arrangement with the U.S. Patent office to investigate the grasses of the U. States as I told you when I had the pleasure of seeing you at my house - This will lead
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me to visit different states & localities and to seek for specimens of grasses and information of all kinds about them - both the cultivated and the wild species. - It will be a job requiring some considerable time.
I spent half a day in Chicago last week - with my brother=in=law Col. Samuel Stone - who is much interested in the newly organised Historical Society. -
Very truly yours I A Lapham
Robt Kennicott Esq