With what could be the last ship of the season for the north, Peter Collinson sends Linnaeus a testimony of the progress of the year’s spring in his garden, situated on a hill north of London. In the valleys south of London, spring can be two weeks earlier than this.
January, February and March were very temperate. Summer has been warm with much rain, which retards the harvest, but in the present warm weather everything looks well.
In an enclosed issue of the Philosophical transactions Linnaeus will se more of John Ellis’s observations. Collinson does not think Linnaeus has seen Ellis’s account of the corallines [Collinson refers to "An Account of an Encrinus"].
Collinson asks for Linnaeus’s unreserved opinion of Ellis’s work in an early letter [Collinson probably refers to his letter to Linnaeus, 1 April 1757{2194}].
P.S. Collinson reports that the Kalmias have flowered finely this year. In that context, Collinson asks how many volumes have been printed of Pehr Kalm’s report of his American discoveries [Collinson refers to En resa til Norra America, which was published with three volumes, the last one in 1761; the English translation was not published until 1770-1771, Travels into North America], and he asks Linnaeus to tell Kalm that Kalm seems to have forgotten Collinson entirely.
Linnaeus will soon receive his diploma, finely ornamented.