Item 66 - Letter from D Turner to Frank Buckland

1 letter

My dear Sir

I have received and I need not say with much thankfulness your Lecture on the Potato Disaster and its Remedies which you had the great kindness to direct to me. The malady is so dreadful and the manner in which you have treated it, is so admirable that I am at a loss to tell you with how much interest I have read it and how greatly I feel myself indebted to you on the occasion. Here in Norfolk, I am much happy to say, the disaster does not appear to be by any means so prevalent or destructive as in most other places. Different people give me very different statements; but on the whole I quite infer that not a fourth part of the crop is destroyed. Lord Gosford too writes me work from Armagh that, tho in the varying reports brought him, he can [?] to no certain result he has reason to hope the evil has been greatly exaggerated by report; and so will send [?] from the [opposite?] County of Cork, that even if it amounts to a third, which he doubts, there is still no ground for doom inasmuch as they always exported that proportion of their produce to England. You give me great comfort by the assurance that the disease, is not new but frequent in Canada, on which point I will write to Lord Gosford and try to learn somewhat from [?] [?] whom I expect here tomorrow, and it is needless to add that, if I have anything likely to interest you, I will not fail to communicate it. But your lecture is so charming and full of interest from beginning to end, that if I want to allow myself to set about praising you here, thanking you there, and in another place begging for information or expressing a doubt I feel I shd never have done. One only point I therefore will mention, if I do it in [?] quality of another of the Lichenographic Brittanica and consequently jealous for the honour of the Lichens that, if my memory serves and Sir John Franklin did not live entirely without food, but found considerable support from the Umbilicaria that he gathered from the rocks. You will excuse my taking this opportunity of congratulating you, as I do still more heartily the country upon your appointment to the Dean of Westminster. This will bring you and me within 5 hours of each other and I trust I shall often have the pleasure of meeting you, and occasionally of receiving you and Mrs Buckland at this house. In the midst of the present distress Yarmouth has been surprisingly favoured. Our merchants have just concluded the most prosperous fishing known in the memory of man. They tell me too that herrings are [?] good, to which verdict I shall be glad if you can [?] in that hope. I took the liberty of [?] a small cask of them to you yesterday. Sir Joseph Banks sent to tell me he got none equally good as those I sent him, to find you repeat the same will be a great pleasure to my dear Sir
Ever most truly with the greatest
esteemed regards
[?] Turner