OLD ESSEX GARDENERS AND THEIR GARDENS. 79
We find requests for terrapins; "Friend John, this is only
"a hint by the way: Lord Petre is a great admirer of your foreign
"wild water-fowl. If at any time an opportunity offers, send
"him some. Thou will lose nothing by it"; tortoises;
humming bird's nest, eggs, cock and bird, for Lady Petre. In
return clothing, books, money (e.g., "twenty pounds, ten
"shillings in halfpence, which I have put up in a strong cask.")
Collinson did not scorn to combine business with pleasure,
and many of those with whom he exchanged seeds and plants
also employed him to procure materials for clothing. Thus Lord
and Lady Petre wrote for " 41/2 yards of blew damask, 1 portion
"and 21/2 of blew to line a pretty coat and ribine to guide."
Among Petre's friends was Dr. Richard Richardson, the well-
known botanist of Bierley, Yorkshire, after whom Houstoun
named the genus Richardia, a name which was adopted by
Linnaeus. Petre wrote to him in October, 1734, saying that
he was "very sensibly mortified," that it was not in his
power to visit him when he was last in the North—he had a
seat at Dunket Hall, Lancashire—and thanking him for the
offer of a collection of "northern plants" which he "must
"take the liberty to accept of; having always been informed that
"your collection of them is by much the most perfect of any. I
"have, I believe, the greatest part of the stove plants, whether
"succulent or other, that are as yet known in England."
He was also apparently a correspondent of the famous Dutch
botanist, J. F. Gronovius, for there is a letter (1738) in the
Richardson Correspondence in which Gronovius states that he
sent Petre a Camphor-Tree two years previously, which came
over in very good condition.
G. D. Ehret11, the finest botanical artist of his day, records
how in 1738 he went to Petre's garden "to find something new."
He remained there several days "and collected many rare
specimens."
There are two books, somewhat miscalled "common place
books," of Collinson in the Library of the Linnean Society. In
the first (f 87) he writes:—
"Lord Petre for so young a Man has a very surprising Genius for
"Building Designing & planting, anno 1733.
11 Ehret married Philip Miller's wife's sister.