Asks for Adanson’s short and considered opinion on the place of the mosses as bridging the separation between the vegetable and the mineral kingdom. Draft of reply is to two questions of Nogaret on the same leaf, dated 21 fevrier 1800. To the first question, Adanson answers that he believes the Dendrites to have originated from sulfureous, bituminous or even metallic vapours in the fissures of stones, to be closest to the vegetable kingdom because they resemble mosses. The mosses, from the plant side, approach the minerals 45 by being of a drier, less “ligneuse” substance and without losing their structure in fire. The second question answered by Adanson is: If the kernel of a garden peach produces only a wild race of peach, from whence came the first peaches with fruits of all degrees of quality up to the most excellent? Adanson replies that the common opinion must be rectified: by sowing each year kernels of the same peach-, apricot-, prune- and cherry-trees etc., one will get nearly as many fruit varieties as is the number of kernels sown; but that by grafting the best, one may conserve and ameliorate by degrees to the highest possible perfection. This, he writes, is based on his experience with melons of which he recognizes 92,000 possible combinations.