TALBOT796

Petersburg
May 3 –

My dear Henry

Sometime ago I received an old letter from you which in some degree has appeased my anger against you but on the whole you have been a very shabby correspondent – & your letter contains little more than nothing. D^r Williams ¹ has after waiting a reasonable time received his specimens as I learn by a letter I received from him not long since – it is just 10 months since they were sent. Many of the plants from which my collection was made were garden plants & were sent from Sarepta² with the native ones. I suppose they had forgot to insert H. cereodii tho I wonder at their having it. I totally forgot the pretty anemonies – how could you like any Polygonum I hate the genus & species – I have just bought the Flora Rossica ³ in the Bazar, what do you think I gave for it? I have lately been employed in collecting all the old travels & reading them – some are become very scarce – their prints are the most execrable performances that branch of the Graphic Art ever had to be ashamed of. they are also very long & very heavy but contain a great deal of very minute & correct detail of the natural history of various parts of Russia. Messieurs les Académiciens ⁴ have left off the good custom of erring ⁵ about & publishing their errors but some works have been published lately in Berlin about the South of Russia are very interesting – especially as they comprehend in 2 vols. 8^vo what Gmelin ⁶ or Falk⁷ &c would have made 3 or 4 quarto vols. of – I hope you learn German you will find it quite necessary for natural history to be able to read travels & dissertations of their innumerable professors & doctors – which are never or very slowly translated – besides which it is very easy to learn as much as is necessary for that only, if you decline burthening yourself with any more

I have been trying to get the Flora [illegible] but cannot find it anywhere. Did you ever try the Chinese method of dwarfing plants described in the first enbassy [sic] to China?⁸ You desire to have had a letter from Moscow did I not write you a very long one thence with the whole history of Count Alexy Razoumovsky’s ⁹ hothouse – & Dr Fisher? ¹⁰ Have you ever seen Tygophyllum Fabago I have lately received seeds of it from Astracan¹¹ but they are disposed of already.

Since I began this letter I have received some seeds from the Caucasus some of which I send you perhaps it would be a Charity to send some of them to Penrice ¹² which I will beg of you to do if you think they have not got them already – I believe they have there all possible out of doors plants –

I could fill up all this sheet to you but I will not for you do not deserve it –

At last I have tumbled on the subjoined Square botanical commodity which I hope you may not in the meanwhile have procured elsewhere Do you know Gossypium herbacium? I have a plan for cultivating it in England – Have you seen M^r Salisbury ¹³ lately? Webb ¹⁴ I hear is coming out here to botanize in the Steppes – Are the tritraria or Gypsophilæ known anywhere on sea coasts as well as by saltlakes? What makes grecian barley stunted in so fine a climate?

Answer this & I am Y^r Aff
W T H F S

W H F Talbot Esq^re
31 Sackville Street
London