Letter from J.D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw

Information

Scope & content: Written from Royal Gardens, Kew. Manuscript

He thanks Maw for securing the plants and asks him to send them half only when they are ready to divide; they are so overwhelmed with work that they could not give the plants the attention they deserve; the place is full of Joad’s [George Curling Joad, alpine collector who left his collection of alpine plants to Kew Gardens on his death in 1881] plants awaiting the completion of the rockwork; summer is advancing rapidly; he is at the arboretum twice a day; the ordinary correspondence gets more extraordinary every year; he accepts Maw’s offer of tiles for his house and thanks him; the solicitors continue to haggle over the land, as the seller’s contract declares it subject to right-of-way easements and they want it to state ‘free of any right of way’; Huxley’s [Thomas Henry Huxley, geologist] son-in-law, Mr Waller [Fred Waller, architect] of Gloucester, is planning a little Elizabethan house for Hooker, and he will send Maw the plan when it is ready; he envies Maw his trip to Tangier [Morocco]; he asks if they will see him on his way there or back

Credit Line: Courtesy of David Symonds Hooker / The Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker / RHS Lindley Collections