324 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



From S. F. Baird to George Spangler, Carlisle. 



February 23, 1855. 

 MY DEAR GEORGE: 



I wish you would send word at what prices such trifles as butter, 

 eggs, chickens, ducks and turkeys, are selling about Carlisle. I have 

 just gone to housekeeping for the first time here and find the cost of 

 the eatables a serious thing. Would it be possible to make arrange- 

 ments with somebody in Carlisle to send me every week or two a 

 box containing butter and eggs and in cool weather some poultry, 

 chickens, ducks and turkeys. We use, I suppose, five or six pounds 

 of butter, and a couple of dozen eggs every week, one or two turkeys 

 and other things in proportion. 



Butter here is 37^ cents, eggs 25 to 37^, chickens 75 cents, and 

 turkeys one to two dollars; beef 15 cents. . . . Wood $8.00 a 

 cord (hickory). . . 



Yours truly, 



S. F. BAIRD. 



From Spencer F. Baird to Louis Agassiz. 



WASHINGTON, March 16, 1855. 

 MY DEAR PROFESSOR: 



I am ashamed to have kept your last kind letter so long on hand 

 unanswered, but I wanted to send you proofs of the plates of Cyprino- 

 donts engraved from Sonrel's drawings for the report of the Mex. 

 Boundary in return for the exquisite plates you sent me. These 

 were to be furnished in a few weeks then, and I requested the engraver 

 to strike off some extra copies, which he promised, and I have been 

 waiting patiently for them. A few weeks ago I learned to my great 

 disappointment, that he had received the most positive orders from 

 the Interior Department not to take any proof whatever, except 

 such as were delivered to the office, and that the plates themselves 

 had been securely locked up in the Department. I might possibly 

 find some old sheets with numerous corrections scratched on them, 

 if that would answer, but I have not a clean set myself! We have 

 had a hard time this winter with congressional committees and other 



