Excerpt from Memoirs of Ralph Vansittart: A Member of the Parliament, of Canada, 1861-1867 Living near us was my uncle, Colonel Ralph Van sittart, for whom I was named. 'he was a bachelor of about 50 years of age, and had been induced, through his affection for my father, to purchase the ad joining farm, when he retired from the army after the Crimean war. When a young man, and before enter ing the army, he had an old-fashioned tutor, passion ately fond of botany, who found in my uncle an apt pupil, and even before entering at Woolwich had made of him a fair field botanist, familiar with all the com mon English flowers, and, indeed, the flora generally of his neighbourhood. His army life for a long period put an end to his favorite pursuit, but once he settled down upon a Canadian farm, his old pastime was taken up with renewed avidity. No sooner had the warm spring rains and south winds driven off the winter frosts and snow, than my uncle, in an old suit of cor duroy, could be seen, with knapsack on shoulder, trudging over the fields and through the woods after the first floweret that pushed its gentle head above the ground. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.