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Where do you board and who is your chum? What has occasioned postage Reform 'twixt here & Bangor? Postage now but 1/2 dime. Thos. McKellan's poems I have not seem. Have not much opportunity of seeing new books as I used to have. Once in a while I get up to Brattleboro. Sometimes squeze out five minutes or half an hour to go in a Bookstore. Think I have seem a notice of the book you mention. There I feel the need of Society most, is the lack of somebody to read Prov. Phil. to! You do not know, Joseph, how it hurts me, that you do not appreciate that book any more fully than you seem to. I am most afraid I worship it, How I do love it! Did I tell you that I had Gray's Botany of the Northeastern States. It contains probably 12 or 15 hundred different Genera. undoubtedly about every plant found in the U.S. north of Virginia & Kentucky its specific descriptions are not quite as full as those of Bigelow. But then it far surpasses it in scientific exactness of Tribes, families & genera, which is much more valuable. It follows the Natural System, the only thing which is really worth anything, except easy lessons for beginners. There are great abundance of plants here not found in Maine. The Broad Leaved Laurel Kalmia. I believe the most splendid shrub I ever saw, is extremely abundant in June & July. Azalea another large shrub, is very splendid, large flowers. Orchis of all kinds very rare. Jersey Tea (Ceanothus) & Bladder Tree (Staphylea) Is Lobelia pallida ever seen in Maine. flowers like inflata, but plant straight without branches, flowers crowded. It is common - like Buttercups - here; Two species of Spocynum, a Geranium, Two small species of Wild Clover, downey, and yellow, Lupine, Vetches, Bush Clover, Hedysarum &c. &c. A very beautiful species of Asclepias, not strictly orange colored, root much valued as medicine &c. &c. &c. Plants vary much here from Maine. I believe I have not told you of the death of Cousin Joseph's little boy July 16th. Most two years old. I believe I loved him better myself than any other child I ever saw of the age. Dysentery, prevalent here, many deaths, children mostly.