Jefferson’s copy was sent to him by David Baillie Warden, who wrote from New York on January 2, 1811: “I beg leave to inform you that I wrote to you from Washington and Baltimore, and sent, by the Post, from the latter place, several packets which I hope you have received. I now send three brochures--“Select papers of the Belfast Literary Society”--”

Jefferson replied from Monticello on January 12: “ When I wrote my letter of the day before yesterday, I had not yet time to look into the pamphlets you had been so kind as to send me. I have now entered on them; and find in the very entrance an article so interesting as to induce me to trouble you with a second letter. it is the first paper of the 1 ^st. fasciculus published by the Belfast society in which m ( ^~ r) Richardson gives an account of a grass which he calls Fiorin, or agrostis Stolonifera, which from his character of it would be inestimable here to cover what we call our galled lands. these are lands which have been barbarously managed till they have had all their vegetable mould washed off, after which we have no permanent grass which can be made to take on them. from the length of time which the fiorin is said to retain it’s vegetative power after being severed from the earth, I am persuaded that if done up in moss under proper envelopes, it would come here with life still in it. perhaps your connections in Ireland might enable you to procure a little of it to be sent to me. if done up in a packet not exceeding the size of the 12 ^mo. or 8 ^vo. volume and addressed to me, it would come from any port of this country where it should be landed, by post, with safety & what is equally important, with speed. you would render in this a great service to our agriculturalists, for none can be greater than the communication of the useful plants of one country to another. trusting that I shall find a pardon, for this trouble in the motives leading to it, I tender you my salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect. ”

William Richardson, 1740-1820, Irish writer on geology and agriculture. His account of fiorin grass published in these papers was separately published in 1809 as a Letter to the Hon. Isaac Corry on Irish Fiorin or Fyoreen Grass, with Proofs .

Jefferson owned also a copy of a duodecimo edition published by the Elzevirs, purchased from a catalogue sent by Van Damme of Amsterdam in 1788, billed by him on June 25 of that year, price 4.26. This copy is entered by him in his undated manuscript catalogue (as 24s), with the price.

Aulus Gellius, c. 123-c. 165, Roman scholar. The Noctes Atticæ is in twenty books, compiled by him from material collected during the winter nights in Attica. The first edition was printed in Rome in 1469, and the work was frequently reprinted.

Jakob Gronovius, 1645-1716. This edition is a re-editing of the variorum edition published by his father, Johann Friedrich, in Leyden, 1666 and 1687.