Jul[y] 13/[18]99.
THE CAMP, SUNNINGDALE.
My dear Prain The boxes of Cigars arrived to day & I thank you hearwith for the trouble you have taken for me. -- I am writing to thank King*1 also. They are a capital lot. A thousand thanks for the seeds, which arrived in the best condition -- a wonderful contrast to what they used to be in the pre Kingian days -- though I think in this case the packing was too laborious, each seedpacket being enclosed[?] in separate paper,

each of these in a little cotton saw sack of its own! -- so that the whole formed a little pillow. They are a most interesting set & I am sending some to Mr Thomson*2, who had asked me to transmit the enclosed to you. Thomson [is] a most admirable seed rearer[?] & does not go in for ordinary [illeg.] stock, but only raises new plants. This one of the few nurseries[?] in England who have any botanical Knowledge. I am telling him that a I am sending him a share of your best seedlings[?], he must not expect any thing further from you for a long time to come.

Most certainly King is wrong in supposing that a set of Gammie’s*3 plants was sent to Kew & the Brit[ish] Mus[eum]. G. Murray[,] now the head of the Dept[ment], assures me that none ever came there. Will you tell me whether Trimen*4 sent to your Garden a copy of the Handbook of the Ceylon Flora, I am puzzled what to do with the Presentation copies of P[late] iv. which should[?] go[?] to[?] there[?] to where Trimen sent the foume[?] parts. Ever sincerely yours | Jos. D Hooker[signature]
ENDNOTE
Sir George King (1840 --1909), superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta 1871 -- 1898 and the first Director of the Botanical Survey of India 1891-1898. In 1898 King was succeeded at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens by Sir David Prain Probably William Thompson (1823? -- 1903) a botanist and plant grower who entered into partnership with John Morgan, forming the Ipswich based company Thomson and Morgan that is still in existence today George Gammie (1864 -- 1935) worked as an assistant in Mungpu, India from 1881 to 1899 and went on collecting tours to Sikkim and the Brahmaputra Valley. His father James Alexander Gammie (1839 -- 1924) was also a famous botanist Henry Trimen (1843 -- 1896) wrote The Flora of Ceylon, which was finished by others after his death
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