Showing 20 results

Fond banter between R. Farrer and E. Gye and saying he will seek his company when he returns from the dripping Aquarium, Burma in 1921. Likes the colours of the landscape but not much else here. Using mules to transport and has had a successful season of collecting. Has been injured by the scrub and bamboo and these injuries have taken a long time to heal. Describes how a red panda, a tiny bear with a banded ginger & orange bottle-brush tail has joined their camp and has become tame. He is going down to Myitkyina in a fortnight, by cargo boat slowly to Bhamo, Mandalay and Rangoon where he and Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] will spend Christmas. Will say farewell to Jumps then and welcome the Beautiful Boy [Milner]. Sends his and Jump's love to Ernest and other friends. Signed the Master. ‘I've cut or scratched myself (as one is forever doing in the scrub & the bamboos) my sumptuous flesh, instead of promptly healing as its habit is, has developed large & perpetually pussiferous sores till now, I'm a perfect Lazarus, with my lovely legs like a professional beggar's.’ (this letter, 3 pages long in foolscap polypockets)

Has sent seeds of Nomocharis pardanthina to Ernest which the cat [the red panda?] has defecated on, which they are both are certain will affect its germination & describes at length its beauty. Reports Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] has left and the Beautiful Boy [Milner] has slain his sister and is not coming to join him. Rented a bungalow in Maymyo to have a place of his own. Proposes to visit pagodas, but unrest with a new Burma movement may affect this. Intends to visit the Buddha's relics the Arakan Pagoda. Had some firework celebrations & received books from Bain. Describes the beauties of Nomocharis pardanthina, as ‘quite singular, being those of a little pink Lily that has had an affair with a naughty spotted Odontoglossum, & produced a child that bears several shamefaced flat pendant flowers of softest pink, which have an eye of deep chocolate, surrounded by a ring of yellow in three crested fringes, while three of the segments are very broadly oval, fringed & spotted with deep purple.’

Responds to Ernest's sense of being slighted, not receiving as many letters as others, saying that his gaps in letter writing due to being in camp and nothing of interest happening. He gives advice regarding Amelia, a possible liason of Ernest's, to forget her. Looks forward to having parties with Ernest, maybe at Ingleborough with him and Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] unpacking items he's brought from Peking. Although wonders if Ernest may be in Britain as talking of going to Persia. Tells Ernest he has written to Jumps regarding weeds & weather which he is sure he will get to read. Suggests that this country is rather boring and does not generate a creative impulse. Spent one last fortnight in the Alps, seed collecting and now resting for a month in Nyitadi. Rambles about Greek and other characters and of his own writings. Again remonstrates that he has been a regular correspondent to E. Gye as regular as to his Mommer.

Writes of long descent from Moku-ji, stung by bees- wearying and enjoying relaxing reading his new books and letters he has received. Concerned about Ingleborough and asking if the seeds he sent are growing? The book, Empty House, he has been writing, he intends to send to Ernest Gye, instructing where to get two copies of the manuscript typed, one to be taken to A.S. Watt, agent and other to be read by E. Gye and Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] then sent out to Peking where R. Farrer will amend it further - proposes a timescale for this process. The book is about his last 3 years of travelling. Pleased Jumps is going to start a literary career in London and will have his company.

Box 6: 1920-1984; Farrer's death and post-death, including poem written by Farrer one week before his death 'found in the pencil copy of the Empty House' [Farrer's last unpublished novel]; telegram sent to Farrer after his death; correspondence relating to Farrer's death - correspondents include E.A. Bowles, Hugh Faulkener; F. Vivian Clerk, Bidder, Sir Francis Younghusband, Sepoy Jange Bhaju, E.H.M. Cox, J.T.O. Barnard, S.M. Frank, A.W. Porter, W.T. Stearn and Charles Graham and telegrams reporting death and letters about location and upkeep of the grave; photographs relating to Farrer's grave; undated correspondence - letter from William Purdom to Farrer; Rev. Henry Jardine Bidder to Farrer, and 4 undated letters from Farrer to his parents [mention of autocars in London]; postcard showing Edith Sitwell from Edith to Farrer's mother, March 1922, and photograph of Edith as a child [Sitwells are related to the Farrers] and collection of book reviews collected by Farrer, 1901-1920.

Describes being somewhere very remote, like Eden. It takes 9 days to reach an outpost where letters can arrive. Hopes this Arcadian state will continue and glad he is alone, writes negatively about Jumps's [Euan H.M. Cox's] presence when he was in camp with him previously. Doing some painting of flowers and landscape, using the Chinese and Japanese convention as there are trailing rolls of white cloud around. A minute fly a nuisance. He notes there is the possible vendetta locally but he will await events and he has raised the Union Jack, which he thinks people find vastly reassuring. ‘I am gone down to the bedrock existence unadorned, & there, never thinking of the lovely fluffs & frills of life, achieve a bare and barbarous glory of contentment.’

Yesterday, a coolie brought three letters from E. Gye, and 90 others from friends, all sopping wet and these were dried over the kitchen hearth. Pleased to get them, gives advice about E. Gye's life although aware it is likely to be out of date - surprised E. Gye going off to Tehran and sad he will not be in London when he returns. Writes again that he is enjoying his solitude without Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] as he felt responsible for his enjoyment - in camp it has been raining solidly for 3 weeks. Rewriting his book called Empty House about which he begs E. Gye to comment. Writes of Amelia, a friend again, thanks E. Gye for a book. Notes he has received money from R.G.S. (The Gill Award) £36 & royalties of £24 from the Eaves, which he views as windfalls. ‘All letters were sopping wet, caked into a pie. Sadness can't be allowed to mean shirking: one may cry over the broken eggs but the omelette of life has to go on being made all the same. Indeed I'm an egg myself: appreciate me please.’

The Peter and Ewan Cox collection contains the diaries and notebooks of Peter Cox, detailing plant collecting trips undertaken from 1962 until 2012.

The collection also contains two books of rainfall measurements taken by Ewan Cox as well as one note book relating to plants ordered from Logan Botanic Gardens.

Ewan Cox – (1893-1977) - Cox, Euan Hillhouse Methven (1893–1977), plant collector and gardener | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com)

Diaries

Plant Lists

1922? ‘ Plants ordered from Logan’

?

‘Rain Fall’ - accounts? 1922>1932

‘Rain Fall – 1932-42

Peter Cox – 1930s

Diaries

Turkey 1962 (unsure of author)

India 1965 (Not clear if Ewan but mentioned ‘Peter and I’ on 11th April

‘??? – 1967, Bookshop – 1976, RH. Conference – 1982’, Diary entries from Spain – 1967, requests for bookshop, names of customers? And diary entries from ‘RBG’ conference

China – 1981 – Also continues notes of seed+plants

‘Dolomites 1976’ – Unsure of author, contains entry from 15/9/1984

Nepal 1985

Bhutan – 1988

China - 1989

Sichuan – 1990

China – 1992

Contains photograph ‘Huan Rong, Lai Xuebo, Lai Han’

Yunnan SPR - 1992

Yunnan SPR – 1994

China 1995

Chile – 1996

Tibet - 1996

Yunnan – 1997

South Africa - 1998

Tibet - 1999(or 8?)

China – 1999

China – 2000

India - 2002

India 2004

China - 2007

Armenia – 2008

China - 2009

China - 2010

Georgia - 2011

China – 2012

Field notes?

‘1954>Notes’ – Author unclear

‘USA ETC’ 1974 (Continues into 1982?)

USA – 1978

‘IPPS’ – June - 1984

Nepal - 1985

China – 1986

China - 1986

Bhutan - 1988

Sichuan – 1989

China – 1990

USA - 1991

China - 1993

‘Field notes ETC 1992-4 – Yunnan, Tibet’

Tibet – 1996

China – 1997

Tibet - 1998

China – 1999

‘2000 – Base’ – Burma?

Australia/New Zealand – 2000

India – 2002

India - 2004

India – 2006

India – 2006 ‘No Field Notes’ – contains lists but no notes

China - 2007

China – 2012

‘Cult Book’ (Culture?) – 1980?

‘Seed Collected September/October 1978, Cox & Hutchinson.’ 3 pages a4, America, Mostly West Coast

‘Game Register’ – 1945-51

‘Hybrid Notes for book’

FRS/2/1/01-43: Rhododendron Conference (1939), papers dating to 1938 including : programme, agenda, correspondence with Fred J. Chittenden, Campbell, Robert Moyes Adam, John MacQueen Cowan, William J. Blackwood, Euan Cox, John Finnie, Donald Wyman, Lionel de Rothschild, Sir John Stirling Maxwell, etc regarding research for paper to be presented by F.R.S. Balfour at the conference – there’s a lot of weather data being passed around. Also copies of the paper “Rhododendron Species in a Cold Situation”

1 book containing signatures of visitors to the Logan House gardens between 1949 and 1967. Signatures include many significant figures in the horticultural world- Euan and Peter Cox, Vita Sackville-West using her married name of Nicolson, Cicely M. Crewdson, George Taylor, numerous landowners, members of RBGE staff and, in 1955, HRH, Elizabeth R.