Dear Father

Many thanks for your letter, Natures B. Z. &c. I shall write to Stahl & will give you message²   I am glad my corrections have been useful.³ I was very glad to find that you & mother approved of Ubbadub being sent away. The other Miss Pedley is unwell now I expect with measles.⁴

I have been up to the furrowed place on the mountain, M^r Ruck⁵ was told by the farmer that his the farmer’s grandfather remembered it being ploughed   M^r Ruck thinks it was about 60–80 years ago. I dug two places. one about 48 cm deep one an inch or two less (I havn’t a foot rule here) & then I got down to debris of slate rock, I saw no worms   How deep ought I to dig? In the autumn they will look on these old fields for worms. Moles certainly go up on the mountain as high as these places; M^r Ruck doesn’t know what they go after as he doesn’t believe there are earth worms there   There is something among the roots of the grass for the rooks tear up great patches. If Atty’s Regt stops on the Peiwar he will write to the D^r who is fond of such things & ask whether there earthworms there; Atty is almost sure there are; it is 9000 ft high there.⁶

I have had some jolly fishing & caught some decent sized sea-trout: the worst of it is you suffer such agony over those you miss. I lost one about 3 pounds yesterday through trying to land him in a bad place & I might have taken him down the rapid to a gravelly shore & landed him if I had known it was there.

I have found a good many sea shore plants new to me on the sand hills here.

I like Ubbadubs cannon joke: please give him my love & say I will write to him— | Yrs affec | F. D.