A little messenger met me with your letter of April 8th when I was on my way to the woods for the first time. I read it upon a moss-clad fallen tree. You only of my friends congratulated me on my happiness in having avoided the misery and mud of March, but for the serious part of your letter, the kind of life which our plant friends have, and their relation to us, I do not know what to think of it. I must write of this some other time. In this first walk I found _Erigenia_, which here is ever first, and sweet little violets, and _Sanguinaria_, and _Isopyrum_ too, and _Thalictrum anemonoides_ were almost ready to venture their faces to the sky. The red maple was in full flower glory; the leaves below and the mosses were bright with its fallen scarlet blossoms. And the elm too was in flower and the earliest willows. All this when your fields had scarce the _memory_ of a flower left in them. I will not try to tell you how much I enjoyed in this walk after four weeks in bed. You can _feel_ it. Indianapolis, June 9th, 1867. I have been looking over your letters and am sorry that so many of them are unanswered. My debt to you has been increasing very rapidly of late, and I don’t think it can ever be paid. I am not well enough to work, and I cannot sit still; I have been reading and botanizing for some weeks, and I find that for such work I am very much disabled. I leave this city for home to-morrow accompanied by Merrill Moores, a little friend of mine eleven years of age. We will go to Decatur, Ill., thence northward through the wide prairies, botanizing a few weeks by the way. We hope to spend a few days in Madison, and I promise myself a great deal of pleasure. I hope to go South towards the end of summer, and as this will be a journey that I know very little about, I hope to profit by your counsel before setting out. I am very happy with the thought of so soon seeing my Madison friends, and Madison, and the plants of Madison, and yours. I am thankful that this affliction has drawn me to the sweet fields rather than from them. Give my love to Allie and Henry and all my friends. Yours most cordially, JOHN MUIR. Roses with us are now in their grandest splendor. My address for five or six weeks from this date will be Portage City, Wis. [1867.] I am now with the loved of home. I received your kind letter on my arrival in Portage four weeks ago. I have delayed writing that I might be able to state when I could be in Madison. I have never seen _Arethusa_ nor _Aspidium fragrans_, but I know many a meadow where _Calopogon_ finds home. With us it is now in the plenitude of glory. _Camptosorus_ is not here, but I can easily procure you a specimen from the rocks of Owen Sound, Canada. It is there very abundant, so also is _Scolopendrium_. Have you a living specimen of this last fern? Please tell me particularly about the sending or bringing _Calopogon_ or any other of our plants you wish for. I have no skill whatever in the matter.