My dear Charlie

If I wrote as often as I think of you & long for a crack, you w^d be wearied with weary letters!¹

I wanted to congrat^e you on your Boy’s success; & now I see fresh reason therefor, thank God.²

My Son gives me no satisfaction by the mere fact of being a Clergyman;³ but I c^d tell you of many very pleasing traits in him & in Mary,⁴ who is not (yet) in Orders, nor an electress, nor M.D., nor even a whipper-in, tho’ she rides respectably, when she gets a chance for I can’t keep a “Peggy” for her. D’ye mind Peggy? what Woman will be—qui sait?

I am sending you a Phenomⁿ.* w^h. I think you will attend to.⁵ Botanists are, I fear, bigots; &, when they have ascertained that certain plants are “proliferous” or “viviparous”, some of them seem to think that the ne plus ultra; whereas I think the various ways in which diff^t. plants perform that supererogatory duty deserve most careful & discrim^g attention, w^h. may throw l^t. on reproduction in gen^l.

If you have time to read what I have said about Card. pratensis & then to look at the “funny stories” in the best Flora, I think you will be amused by their concise-ness.⁶ And if you dont take the plant in hand, you will set your youngsters, or some others, to work on it, to more purpose than I have skill or time for. I mean to send also some seeds of Heracleum Ponticum biennial umbellate 12 to 15 feet!⁷ I never saw so grand a herb. Your thistles w^d. make it look small, aiblins.—

I constantly see a Darwin revolving in our district   I mean Frank Parker, who married a young friend of mine,⁸ & keeps a good horse or 2 or 3— He & I were robbed, 1 n^t., of some small articles; the rogues having the good taste to plunder the rich man most

*The leaves I was to have sent rotted   when I get more you shall have them. I send this as a token of good will.

Yours very truly | J Price

Love to Raz.⁹