Three Friends 145 



rapher of his time. Sir John told me of his opinion of 

 Henry's work on a number of occasions. 



Henry built up the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu- 

 tion out of nothing. The report which he prepared showing 

 the need for such an organization induced the Rockefeller 

 Foundation to endow it, and the Institution is now doing 

 admirable research for the United States Navy. 



A third friend has won for himself a place quite as deep 

 in my affections as John or Henry. This is David Fairchild. 

 I am fortunate in that my best men friends were all hand- 

 some and David has the temperament of an angel. No more 

 lovable human being ever lived, nor anyone who could 

 write more delightfully charming English prose. Every sen- 

 tence he writes is crammed with unbelievable grammatical 

 errors, yet everything he writes holds one's breathless atten- 

 tion. His two books. Exploring for Flaiits and The World 

 Was My Garden, have made him, if possible, more widely 

 known than he was before. 



Marrying Alexander Graham Bell's daughter put him 

 in touch with all that was best in Washington. The fact 

 that he later traveled all over the world for years on end 

 simply meant that he left a stream of friends behind him 

 on every continent. As Chief Agricultural Explorer in the 

 Department of Agriculture, he has affected in some degree 

 the hfe of every American. The very wheat of which our 

 bread is made is a better wheat than was grown years ago, 

 and David had a hand in bringing it to America. I make 

 fun of him because he has no bump of locality, because he 

 loves to tilt with windmills, because he would like to be a 

 reformer and crusader, which I am not, but I am sure he 



