From J. D. Hooker 21 March 1858

Dear Henslow

I certainly never received the letter to which you allude about the diagrams. Very many thanks for them now. I do think they are of consummate excellence & the rising Botanical world is infinitely indebted to you for them.

Bentham is writing very hard at your Cambridge Herbarium.

I have got a new hand at Kew, in a Mr Oliver Th.s. a young Newcastle man who is violently addicted to the pursuit of Botany, and who Bentham & I have engaged to assist us see in Spruces plants & in the arrangement of the India House Herbarium. The latter are at last entrusted to me for arrangement & are lodged at Kew. Eleven huge van loads of dried plants big 130 chests & 250 immense bundles! About 2/3 are totally destroyed by damp & vermin.

Indeed & I have an enormous store of E.I. duplicates to distribute but do not see my way to distributing:- the expense is a draw back & the time a greater. Cambridge shall have a good share when they do go.

Your affectionate

J. D. Hooker