ligeon which fits us for & incites us to the practical part or obedience to his Second Command That of loving our neighbour as our Selves. The practise of the second command gives no less pleasure to a good man than the Speculations of the first. You have a great deal Sr in your power that of being useful to allmost one half of the world to all America We are very poor in Knowlege & very needy of assistance Few in America have any taste of Botany & still fewer if any of these have ability to form & keep a Botanical Garden without which it is impracticable to give compleat Characters of Plants. In short I may positively assert that not one in America has both the power & the will for such a performance. Such a work is necessary it will be a lasting benefite to mankind it has all the motives to it which can incite a good man to any performance attended with trouble. I am sensible how much your time is taken up with Business But at the same time I cannot doubt of your obtaining assistance from curious persons perhaps much at leizure. I told Mr Bartram of the Design I have of intreating you He was exceedingly pleased with it & promises all the assistance in his power. The hopes of perswading you to this has made me send you the inclosed sheet on a New Method of printing as I believe it may be as usefull in this Design as in any. A work of this kind is so extensive that it can hardly be compleated in one life & admits of perpetual additions now the method proposed if it be practicable as I persuade my self it is may encourage you to give us speedily as much as you can since such a manner of publishing will be no hinderance to the making it more compleat afterwards but rather a means of procuring all the assistance possible to make it so. How much labour & how many valuable Collections in Botany more than in any other Science have been lost to the World by delay & an Indeavour in the Author to compleat his work before it appear'd in publick I shall not presume to give my thoughts on any particular of the Method to be observ'd in this work because I have but a very Superficial Knowlege in Botany I shall only say that I wish it to be in English, tho' I know that it is more difficult to do it in this language than in Latin. To incourage you in this I inclose a Description in English of two American plants not as patterns but to convince you what may be don if I who have so little skill in Botany have been able to make them tollerable. One of them I have for many years taken notice of as one of the signs of a Fertil soyl but of late I cannot pass it without paying a particular regard to it The reason of my choosing the other will appear in the Description of it. But to return to the reasons I have for desiring your work in English 1 We have nothing in Botany tollerably well don in English so far as I have seen 2 it will thereby be more usefull in America where the learned languages are little understood 3 It may set many who do not understand latin the Ladies especially on amusing themselves with this study & thereby procure more assistance in bringing this knowlege to perfection The Ladies are at least as well fitted for this Study as the men by their natural curosity & the accuracy & quickness of their Sensations It would give them means of imploying many idle hours both usefully & agreably As I cannot doubt that Mrs Collinson has the same taste of pleasures with you I am fond to believe that she will with pleasure save you some trouble in such a work as I propose. No doubt your correspondents inform you of the uses of several plants I wish something of that may be added for as most of the Plants are new to us the use of them must be so likewise Indeed a Plant may be long known & the use but a late Discovrey. This brings to my memory what I have read in Allex" London Dispensary under the Word Ipecocuana of a root from Maryland which in most of the Shops had been substituted in place of the true Ipecocuana the use of which was forbid by the College of Physicians on Sr Hans Sloans information that it was a kind of Apocynum No doubt the College was in the right to forbid the substituting of one plant in place of another but I am not well satisfied with the reasons giv'n by Sr Hans as deliver'd in that book viz That it is a poisonous plant being a kind of Apocynum Now to this I object That it is doubtfull whether any of the Plants which are now known by the name of Apocynum be really the Apocynum of Dioscorides by who Authority alone our Apocynum are branded so far as I know with the Character of Poysons. Again supposing Dioscorides plant to be truely an Apocynum it does not follow that all the Species in America rank'd under that Genus are in like manner Poysonous. Dioscorides say that his apocynum has a very offensive smell I know an American species who flowers smell very agreably & may not there virtues likewise differ as much I think we have strong reasons to Judge that the Kind of Apocynum substituted in place of Icuanapeco cannot be poisonous otherwise it could not so generally have taken place Sr Hans likewise affirms that the roots of a kind of Apocynum are commonly vended in New Spain for Ipecocuana if so I doubt the greatest quantity of Ipecocuana in the shops is from thence. I have inquired of Mr Bartram & others to discover this Maryland Ipecocuana but can discover no roots under that name but two both of them taken notice of by Mr Clayton in Gron- Flora- Virgin. Neither of them can be the plant substituted for Ipecocuana because the one hardly works with double the dose of the true Ipecocuana & the other (an Esula) works violently with half the dose. You will oblige me by describing the Species of Apocynum substituted in place of Ipecocuana as Sr Hans affirms or what ever other American plant it be I have presum'd I'm affray'd too far upon your time & patience but when I consider that I'm grown old before I had the good fortune of any acquaintance with you & that I can have but few opportunities of continung it & that only for a short time I cannot forbear making the most I can of the opportunities granted me & beg you'l excuse To Mr P. Collinson Sr INDEX Abbotts Rule, Scotland, mentioned, lin Campbell's petition, 214, 216. African Company, mentioned, 23. 83, 88, 106, 114, 124, 133, 153, Albany County, N. Y., tract of land in, petitioned for by Lauchlin 285 dispute in Council concerning the Alexander, Mrs. James, mentioned, Alexander, James, Jr., dies of the Allen, William, mentioned, 274, 277. lader Colden, 94, 160; letter of, |