Copy letter from John Lindley [assistant secretary of the Horticultural Society of London] to Mr Robert Fortune, care of Messrs Dent & Co [merchants in China], Hong Kong, China
Information
Title
Copy letter from John Lindley [assistant secretary of the Horticultural Society of London] to Mr Robert Fortune, care of Messrs Dent & Co [merchants in China], Hong Kong, China
Record type
Archive
Original Reference
RHS/Col/8/1/44
Date
1-2 May 1845
Scope & content
Written from the Horticultural Society, 21 Regent Street [London]
He acknowledges receipt of letter No 16 dated 7 Jan from Hong Kong; he encloses an account of the state in which the plants were received by the Dumfries and the Duke of Bedford [enclosure not present]; some of the plants were dead, and others in a bad condition, but the more valuable species survived, and the seeds are in a very good order; the soil was too dry in some of the cases, which appears to have been due to the poor construction materials of the cases allowing them to warp and the moisture to escape; in the future, cases should be made of hard wood and coated with several layers of paint, as the Chinese varnish gave little protection against the ingress of water; the azaleas already reported are growing well and are now under propagation; further cases on the Forfarshire arrived in bad order containing dead plants; he will give more details in the next mail; the captain blames the bad wood [of the cases], and the officers say they had to use putty to seal splits and openings repeatedly; a letter of credit will be sent to him by this mail
Includes a note on the same sheet from T. Edgar [Thomas Edgar, treasurer of the Horticultural Society of London]. He has not managed to contact Mr Russell Reeves [John Russell Reeves, son of John Reeves], but is certain that Messrs Palmer, McKillop & Co [merchants in London] will communicate with Messrs Dent & Co [merchants in China] to renew Fortune's letter of credit
Extent
3 page letter (1 sheet)
Is part of
RHS archive: plant collector papers
Repository
Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library
Copyright
Royal Horticultural Society
Credit Line
RHS Lindley Collections
Usage terms
Non-commercial use with attribution permitted (CC BY-NC 4.0)