WCP4229

[1]

Parkstone

March 6th. 1892¹

My dear Mr. Cockerell

After receiving the box of plants you were so good as to send me, & your post card, I rather expected some account of your expedition &your first impressions of tropical vegetation, — & so have delayed (unduly) acknowledging your kind remembrance. On unpacking and sorting them I could realise the kind of places they grew l in. Rocky, sunny, with a somewhat dwarf but most luxuriant vegetation, and I longed to be among them. But, for my special culture they were useless, as all this cold winter & spring my greenhouse has been every night only a few degrees above freezing, so I repacked and sent them to a friend who has a [2] first rate gardener, with hothouses, fernery, &c. &c. Nothing will be likely to grow with me unless found above 5000 or 6000 feet elevation. The dead shells among the plants showed that you must have been among your favourites, and I suppose you collected a fine assortment. The orchids & fleshy-leaved plants arrived in good orders, but all the ferns etc. (except one) were completely dead & mouldy. Should you [soon] visit a high elevation & find terrestrial orchids or bulbs, please in packing them, keep them quite dry with no green leaves among them but packed closely & lightly with dry moss. The object is to keep in their own moisture, but to add none outside them, as that leads to mildew & decay. [3] I see your Governoress — Lady Blake — has been writing in the N[orth]. American Review about the fine climate of Jamaica. It makes us long to come & enjoy it. Should you see any nice little cot[tage] to let in some nice place in the mountains, with plenty of rock & forest nearby, let us know, & if we can let our house here for 6 months we may possibly come & be renovated by the glorious sun of Jamaica. Though I sent away the last MSS. of the Index & Preface before Xmas, the new ed.[ition] of Island Life is not yet out. It was about a month before I got proofs of Index, & these have been corrections of the woodcuts only just made, but I suppose Macmillan ^{& Co.} do not want to bring out the new Ed.[ition] [4] till every copy of the old one is sold out. We have ^had a long dreary winter, almost as bad as the previous one, & now we have had a weeks hard frost in Feb.[ruary] & March! I see that there is talk of a Marine Biological Station in Jamaica. The north coast is said to be the most beautiful and the best climate. Is there any Hand Book or Almanack for Jamaica giving an account of the island, climate, &c. The geography books give such very meagre statements, and having been an English possession so long everybody is supposed to know every thing about it, with the result that nobody knows anything! The curious conifer you sent me a photo. of, & which I am afraid I never thanked you for before (as I do now), is a Podocarpus, of which there are two species in Jamaica, one P. [coascea] growing 50 feet high, the other P. Pardieana, 100 feet. I think yours is the former; the other one is locally termed Yacca. Kind remembrances to Mrs. C. who I hope enjoys Jamaica.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]