[88 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



I have referred in so great an extenl 

 to Dr. Morris's youthful nature and 

 sympathies, because I think he is besl 

 understood when regarded at heart as 

 an enthusiastic boy of the country, and 

 in brain and body as a professional 

 man of the city. These two character- 

 istics he successfully combines or, per- 

 haps he applies first one and then the 

 other in his favorite pursuit of nut 

 raising 1 . He shows you the trees and 



stream runs through the place. Here, 

 too, is a fine old forest, with deer and 

 other four-footed creatures, and birds 

 in abundance, and all remarkably tame. 

 although the western boundary is only 

 about seventeen miles from the city 

 limits of New York. 



Some two hundred acres of open 

 land are devoted to his hobby of nut 

 culture. Specimens of nut-bearing trees 

 capable of cultivation in this latitude, 



DR. MORRIS DICTATING CORRESPONDENCE TO HIS SECRETARY, MR. FREER, ON THE OLD 



FARMHOUSE PORCH. 



I am sorry for the man who never stops to think how well off he is with his every-day clothes on. — 



Robert T. Morris, M. D., in "Hopkins's Pond and Other Sketches." 



the nuts with all the enthusiasm of a 

 boy ready to fill a bag with the spoils 

 of a raid, but he studies the subject 

 with all the skill and diligence of the 

 trained scientist. 



"Merribrooke" is an ideal location 

 for such experiments. It consists of 

 about four hundred and thirty acres in 

 the Mianus River Valley, partly in 

 Stamford but chiefly in Greenwich. 

 For a mile a wild and rocky trout- 



are being collected for experiments in 

 cultivating, hybridizing and grafting. 

 At Cornell University he has estab- 

 lished for educational purposes a col- 

 lection of the edible nuts of the world. 

 His reason for choosing Cornell Uni- 

 versity for the purpose is because he 

 is one of the Trustees of that institu- 

 tion and much interested in the devel- 

 opment of its agricultural department, 

 believing, with President Brown of the 



