LETTERS ON THE EFFECTS OF THE COMPOSITION IN ALL CLIMATES. THE HE following letters, &c. are inserted to show that the Composition, when properly applied, is found to be equally efficacious in all climates, soils, and situations. Indeed, all who have given it a fair trial are so fully convinced of its utility, that many noblemen and gentlemen have sent their gardeners to me for instructions. The Chevalier D'Almeida, the Portuguese Ambassador, had a person sent from Portugal for the same purpose; and some Polish noblemen, who had seen the trees in Kensington Gardens, were so fully convinced of the great advantage to be derived from the application of the Composition, as to send a man for instructions, that he might introduce the practice into Poland. Copy of a Letter from the Economical Society of SIR, Imperial Corps of Land Cadets, in St. Petersburgh, As a member of the Economical Society of St. Petersburgh, his Excellency Count Anhalt solicits me to express, in your own language, the pleasure which the communication of your useful discovery has given him, and the learned body over whom he so worthily presides. The Count has already taken the necessary steps, by desire of the Society, to have your little dissertation translated and printed in the Russian language, in order to diffuse the advantage it holds out as widely as possible, over this vast empire. I am happy in the opportunity his commission offers, of expressing likewise, individually, the satisfaction I have received, as a countryman and lover of Botany, from the perusal of your sagacious application of the Chirurgical art to vegetation; and must own, that your extirpation of the diseased parts, and the use of an unguent to ward off the noxious action of the air and humidity, during the exertions of nature to repair loss of substance, and the languid circulation of the vegetable juices, appear to me highly judicious. The analogy in certain respects between the inferior order of beings, so particularly your care, and the more animated link of the great chain of Creation, seems to become every day more and more apparent. Nay, if we are to credit the ingenious Author of the Philosophy of Natural History, lately published in Edinburgh, it is not a little evident; and, indeed, the great number of curious facts and observations which he has brought together, render the phrase which I have used above, much less improper than it would have otherwise appeared on the face of the case. All these considerations then make me see, with the more pleasure, the sagacious application of at least one branch of the healing art to certain diseases of vegetables, to the advantage of the world in general, and the British Navy in particular, which must gain infinitely by the preservation and health of British Oak, unrivalled for the noble purpose to which it is applied. I have still to congratulate you on your becoming, so deservedly, a member of our Society; for sure no treatise ever laid before us promised a wider field of public and private œconomy, and of course none ever came more immediately under the spirit and purport of our institution. I am, Sir, With hearty wishes for the success and extended your pursuit, range of Your most obedient, humble Servant, (Signed) To Mr. Forsyth, Kensington. MATTHEW GUTHRIE. P. S. As the extremes of our climate may produce cases which are not likely to happen in your temperate island, Count Anhalt will be happy to see more observations on such accidents in any future letter you may address to the Society. A paper of mine on the Russian climate, in the second volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, may probably afford you all the information necessary to judge of what modification your system may require in this country, although I do think it applicable every where, with possibly, some little alteration in the consistence of your plaster, to suit extremes of heat and cold. This letter being of a public nature, intended to testify the sense of the Economical Society of Petersburgh, on your useful discovery, you may make what use of it you please. Copy of a Letter from George Sulivan Marten, Esq. SIR, Enston, Oxfordshire, July 30. 1800. UNDERSTANDING there exists some doubt how far your vegetable plaster answers in hot climates, I cannot in justice hesitate to inform you, that it was in constant and successful use not only in my own garden, in the district of Trinsivelly, four hundred miles South of Madras, but also in the Company's Cinnamon Plantation, which I had the pleasure of forming there, and where, from the method of cultivating that spice, the trees are always cut down to stumps. Your plaster at these times was always applied, which stopped the bleeding, and hastened out the shoot (from whence the best Cinnamon is taken) much quicker than the former mode (and which is still practised in Ceylon, I believe) of heaping the earth over them. Nor was my experience confined; for, when I quitted India, in October, 1798, I left one hundred and fifty thousand trees and plants in the Trinsivelly Plantations, all of which I had planted from the seed of two trees brought from the |