_September 30, Woodcroft._ I am now at Mr. Richard Rathbone's; I did not leave Green Bank this morning till nearly noon. The afternoon was spent with Dr. Traill, with whom I dined; there was only his own family, and I was much entertained by Dr. Traill and his son. A man of such extensive and well digested knowledge as Dr. Traill cannot fail to be agreeable. About eight his son drove me to Woodcroft, where were three other guests, Quakers. The remainder of the evening was spent with a beautiful microscope and a Diamond Beetle. Mr. Rathbone is enthusiastic over my publishing plans, and I will proceed with firm resolution to attempt the being an author. It is a terrible thing to me; far better am I fitted to study and delineate in the forest, than to arrange phrases with suitable grammatical skill. For the present the public exhibiting of my work will be laid aside,--_I_ hope, forever. I now intend going to Matlock, and from there to my Lucy's native place, pass through Oxford, and so reach the great London, and once more become the man of business. From there to France, but, except to see my venerable mother, I shall not like France, I am sure, as I _now_ do England; and I sincerely hope that this country may be preferred to that, on financial grounds, for the production of my work. Yet I love France most truly, and long to enter my old garden on the Loire and with rapid steps reach my mother,--yes, my mother! the only one I truly remember; and no son ever had a better, nor more loving one. Let no one speak of her as my "stepmother." I was ever to her as a son of her own flesh and blood, and she to me a true mother. I have written to Louisiana to have forwarded from Bayou Sara six segments of magnolia, yellow-poplar, beech, button-wood or sycamore, sassafras, and oak, each about seven or eight inches in thickness of the largest diameter that can be procured in the woods; to have each segment carefully handled so as not to mar the bark, and to have each name neatly painted on the face, with the height of the tree. These are for the Liverpool Royal Institution.