"My dear Ellen,
"I have received your letter on the subject of plants and will now explain to you what they were, tho I cannot say what was in each box or pot particularly.
Savary A dead plant, its leaves very aromatic, a little resembling thyme. My dependence is that its leaves are shed in the box on the earth and it will come up. Arbor Vitae A small evergreen tree in a small pot. Ice Plant Not entirely dead, but I suppose its seed shed on the earth and will come up. Geranium I think there was a plant of this, but I am not certain. Besides the above, there was a box containing many odds of sweet-scented grass packed one on another, and all in the same box, a bunch of monthly raspberry plants, which box Douglas was directed to carry to Monticello. I much fear he did not, as Bacon writes he received no raspberry plants, saying nothing of the box."
Back at Monticello, Jefferson was wont to spend his entire mornings in his shops, among his vegetables and flowers, and out about his farms. "I talk of my plows and harrows, of seeding and harvesting, with my neighbors, and of politics, too, if they choose to." Advice on public matters, though, was not always forthcoming, "I turn with great reluctance from the functions of a private citizen to matters of State. The swaggering on deck as a passenger
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