RICHARD WARNER AS VIEWED BY KALM. 249
the Academy had chosen amongst a thousand, it could not have chosen a
better; his kindness, his tender care for all that concerned my journey
[to North America] in spite of his thousand items of business, has been so
great, that I cannot express my gratitude for it; nor can the Academy thank
him sufficiently ; he it was who introduced me to a rich Englishman, allied
[in sympathy] to Herr Archiater [Linnaeus] and Baron Bjelke ; he is the
greatest fancier in all the world for collecting and cultivating every kind
of trees, plants and herbs; from the sun's uprising until its going down
(as we sing in our Psalm) and still later, he remains in his garden ; he has
there 4 beautiful orangeries stuffed full with every kind of foreign plants,
of which he has, in a word, abundance ; Herr Archiater can easily imagine
how quickly we agreed ; while he was at home I was hardly absent from
him one hour; he shared with me all the seeds he had, and I think I may
safely say, that in liberality as regards seeds, he surpassed both Herr Archi-
ater and Herr Baron Bjelke ; I had many occasions of this, for when he
had only a few of certain rare seeds which he could save last spring, say 4,.
he gave me 2, or one half ; the, previously mentioned two gentlemen would
hardly have gone so far as that; this gentleman's name is Warner, a very
learned man, and thorough in everything. I see that . . . when I
return from America here 2 or 3 months next autumn . . . I should
pass for a worthless fellow, if I could not get here a great abundance of all
the foreign plants, either their seeds, or living, which occur in English
orangeries and gardens ; it would be a shame to me if I did not get them, for
the people are extremely good. . . .
" The seeds now sent are almost all selected, and a great part which Mr.
Miller received last autumn from America ; a large part I collected with my
own hands in Mr. Warner's splendid garden. Mr. Warner is Miller's special
friend ; he will accompany me to him, to introduce me, and therefore as
I am now come to London, I think of taking up my quarters a little way
from Chelsea garden, to be always with him ; it will be useful in future to
be his special friend. . . ."
Stockholm, 23 May, 1751. ..."Mr. Warner has been very
fortunate in sowing the seeds I sent him earlier ; hardly a single one has
failed, but I saw with pleasure the plants develop and thrive well in his
garden ; they could not do better in their own native country. . . .
'' At my stay in London I was so lucky as to get a considerable quantity
of selected seeds from the East Indies, collected in their native localities
in 1749 and 1750 ; that they are good I know from our common friend,
Mr. Warner, the Englishman, who introduced me to the clergyman who,
at his suggestion, gathered them ; he had, a few days before my arrival
in London, sown some of the seeds, and before I left London nearly all had
come up in his orangery, which I saw ; most of them were from Malabar,
and bear the Malabar names on their wrappers though in European letters."
Abo, 5 June, 1752. . . . "By the last post I received from my
friend Warner in London some seeds which a friend of his collected in Bengal,
in which land he had made a journey of more than 300 English miles up
country ; Warner has reared them in his orangery, but neither he nor Miller
knows to what genus they belong, he believes that they have never been
in Europe before." [These seeds were sent to Stockholm, as Kalm in Fin-
land had no hothouse in which to raise them.]