(seq. 2)

In reviewing our botany I have had scarcely
any other assistance than what Michaux's Flo-
ra afforded & you may well suppose I have seen
many species not described, & doubtful gene
=ra.

As far as I can be serviceable to you
you may depend upon my exertions, at the
same time let the nature of my services be
definite. It can hardly be necessary to send
you specimens which probably grow in your
own woods. Let me know of what genera &
species you need specimens & these I will trans-
mit if in my power, also I will send you what
I suppose may be local.

I am delighed with at your undertaking
& make no doubt but its completion will lay
science under great obligations to you. Much
may be anticipated from the circumstance alone
of your being a native & from the probability
that your taste for botany developed itself ear=
ly in life: for I am sure that when very young
long before I knew the study of plants had been
reduced to a science I could designate those wild
plants which were so nearly allied as to enti=
tle them to a common name, & this early exer=
=cise has given me more readiness in collecting
the species of my native woods than could be acqui
=red by a foreigner.

Give me leave, my dear Sir, merely
to suggest the propriety of enlarging the plan
of your work so as to embrace succinctly facts
relative to the uses, to which particular plants
may be applied either in medicine or the arts.
In this way you might remove from botany
the imputation of its being a mere nomenclature, &

[page 2]
diffiuse a taste for it, but you may probably hold
the believe that a botanist is like a poet. The geographi-
cal range of plants is important not irrelevant to
an understanding like yours. Many important & in-
teresting facts relative to the economy & physiology
of plants might too be introduced. Who would suppose
on reading the jejune descriptions of a botanists that
the sarraceniae Droserae, Dionea, & some species of Apocy-
num & asclepias were furnished by nature with contrivan-
ces for allowing & entrapping insects? & yet these facts
if properly related might arrest the attention of persons
of leisure & attach them ever after to the investigation
of plants. Besides we stumble frequently on facts of
this nature, so detached that unless they can be
inserted into a general work will be lost.

Doubtless you have long ere now
understood the cause of attraction to insects to & the
manner by which they are entrapped by the tubular
leaves of the Sarracenae together with the history [of]
larva always found in the putrid masses at [the base?]
of the tubes. What may be the design of nature in [this?]
Does the plant receive nourishment from the putrid mass?
Dr. J. E. Smith in his elements of botany was most egre
=giously decieved in attempting to explain this vegetable
phenomenon, & I am much surprized at the correct=
ness of the suggestion of the Edinburgh reviewer.

Be assured, Sir, I feel a lively plea-
sure at the prospect of being engaged in a corres-
pondence with one whose pursuits have been di-
rected to objects which have since my earliest re-
collection afforded me amusement & delight.

I am yours with high respect

J Macbride

Chisolm & Taylor will put any letters directed to me as the
last into the Pineville post office.