WCP2953

[1]

'Brooklands'— Milton – N. Z.

25/6/09

To be written to after receipt of seeds

A. R. Wallace Esq F.R.S. &c &c

Dear Sir,

I wrote you by last mail in acknowledgment of your kind letter¹ of 17th: April last and have now the pleasure to enclose a communication from M^r. Tannock² (envelope included) by which you will see that he will send you seeds of Ranunculus Lyalli as soon as he can procure them.

I have recently had sent down to me from Dunedin Athenaeum a very interesting book of Nature Study entitled:- "Life and Sport in Hampshire".³ The author is a M^r. Geo: B. Dewar,⁴ an estate owner in the northern part of that county. The chapter on "The Flight of Birds" I thought [2] contained many original & striking remarks on that topic. The writer's style somewhat resembled that of the past-master of observation of out-of-door life in all departments the late Richard Jeffries:⁵ what a piece of word-painting is his 'Pageant of Summer',⁶ summer in England which cannot be approached, take it all in all, in any other part of the World. I have just been laying down a fairly extensive strawberry bed here, obtaining the plants Laxton's Noble' well-rooted from Dunedin at the rate of 5/- per hundred. You may remember the remark of the epicurean D^r. Boteler⁷ of the 18^th: Cent^y. anent the strawberry that: — "Doubtless God might have made a better berry but doubtless He never did" — But isn't the Mangosteen the king of all fruits?

With kind regards | Yours very truly | W. E. McAdam⁸ [signature]