VOLNEY MORGAN SPALDING 17 



The herbarium alcoves were gradually enlarged. New ideas 

 crept in and brought apparatus. No matter, however, whether 

 equipment was scanty or ample, his students learned from their 

 teacher the nobility of honest endeavor and caught, in some 

 measure, his spirit of optimism. 



Professor Spalding rendered another great service to the state 

 by his work on the problems of forestry. He saw the lumberman 

 remove great forests of pine leaving, too often, desolation in its 

 place. How to use the great natural resources of the forests with- 

 out destroying them was the problem which he met, and to which 

 he devoted years of hard work. He spent his vacations in the 

 woods, travelled about the state at his own expense, talked, wrote, 

 agitated, and kept the issue before the people. Today, the cam- 

 pus on which he worked possesses a modern school of forestry as 

 one of the fruits of his labors. Where there was formerly oppo- 

 sition on the part of the landowners and lumbermen there is now 

 cooperation in scientific and economic investigation. 



Failing health compelled Professor Spalding gradually to light- 

 en the weight of his labors. The year 1898-1899 was spent in 

 southern California in recuperation. Finally, in 1904 he was 

 compelled to relinquish entirely his work in the department at 

 Ann Arbor which he had spent over a quarter of a century in 

 building. After another year spent in southern California, he 

 joined the staff of resident investigators at the Desert Botanical 

 Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution at Tucson, Arizona. His 

 labors at this place are partially embodied in his monograph on 

 the "Distribution and Movements of Desert Plants," a note- 

 worthy study of the intricate problems of vegetation in a semi- 

 arid region. Professor Spalding was so far incapacitated by 

 rheumatism that in 1909 it was necessary for him and Mrs. 

 Spalding to move to the sanitarium at Loma Linda, California, 

 where they resided until his death. Though suffering from severe 

 physical infirmities his mind retained its youthful vigor, while 

 his spirit radiated hope and cheer among the members of the 

 sanitarium for nearly nine years. 



Professor Spalding was president of the Michigan Academy of 

 Science in 1897-1898 and of the Society for Plant Morphology 



THE PLANT WOULD. VOL. 22, NO. 1 



