Received Smith's letter and "curious melon seed"; currently his preferred variety is the green fleshed Egyptian melon. His family: son at Brussels, Lady Frankland confined by paralytic stroke since 20 October, and his brother become incurably blind.
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The Linnean Society of London Collection
The scientific and personal correspondence of James Edward Smith (1759-1828), purchaser of the collections of Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) and founder of the Linnean Society of London in 1788, was presented to the Linnean Society between 1857 and 1872 by his widow Pleasance Smith (1773-1877). Since then, it has been complemented by additional series. The collection was catalogued, conserved, and digitised from 2010 to 2013, thanks to the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Letters can be searched through Ɛpsilon, with links to images and summaries available on the Linnean Society’s Online Collections (http://linnean-online.org/smith_correspondence.html).
Received Smith's letter and "curious melon seed"; currently his preferred variety is the green fleshed Egyptian melon. His family: son at Brussels, Lady Frankland confined by paralytic stroke since 20 October, and his brother become incurably blind.
Received Smith's letter from Woburn [Abbey, Bedfordshire]. His health good but Lady Frankland weakened by summer weather, gave up London trip to care for her. His son in Geneva avoiding the 400 English there, but returning to act as his uncle's executor and so Lady Frankland can meet her new daughter-in-law for first time. Grew successful crop of Great Mogul melons from the seeds Smith sent from Lord [Thomas, 1st Viscount] Anson's [(1769-1818)] and will compare with the green Egyptian and scarlet-fleshed melons, though thinks melons too troublesome to be worth raising.
Strawberry propagation: laid straw in two beds of alpine and pine strawberries, in the latter half of ripe fruit was daily found scooped out, the gardeners think it was slugs but he suspects beetles concealed in the straw during the day, encloses specimen. Strawberry plants given him by [Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of] Harewood's [(1740-1820)] gardener in January 1815 not pines; they have a uniform shape, a higher colour, blood red inside, and firmer than pines, detailed ink sketch of fruit. Unable to succeed with hautboys even when raising from seed of very fine fruit of Mr [Christopher] Dundas' in Berkshire.
Two beetles in small blue envelope labelled "Beetles 'Carabus striatus' Kirby mss. near 'vulgaris'".