Melbury <1>
7 April 1853
My dear Henry
I was sorry to miss you in town – when are you going there again? perhaps you will go to some of Lord Rosse’s <2> soirées – I think of going up the end of next week – to visit a few gardens & repair the losses of this disastrous spring-winter.
I will only tell you a few of my failures.
All the ceanothi except two C. ovalus & thyrsiflorus. Olearia dentata – Opuntia Salmiana. Ilex myrtifolia or angustifolia. Jasminum nepalense & azoricum. Thibaudia glabra – Mahonia pallida. Pteris arguta – Asplenium præmorsum. Ficus australis. Dolichos lignosus – Bougainvillea brasilianus – several Membryanths. several creepers. We shall not know the worst till Midsummer.
I hope you have fared better – & that you are all well at home.
Do give me a receipt for making testpapers to hang up in the open air to test the presence of sea salts in different winds at Abbotsbury <3> & recommend me an intelligent chemist to make them – I often wished for such a thing this winter.
I always regret poor Dr Herbert <4> at this season – I should have so much to shew him now – & I have nobody to apply to in bulbous cases.
Yr Aff
W F S
[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800–1867), astronomer & MP.
3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. William Herbert, Dean of Manchester (1778–1847), MP; clergy; botanist; linguist.
5. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
6. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.