CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 147 
beyond her depth. After my graduation, I was so exhausted from over 
work and undernourishment, that it was not long before I fell a victim 
to a slow fever that incapacitated me for work and left me a perambu- 
lating wreck. To keep my mind occupied I rambled over the hills and 
prairies, collecting plants and trying to name them. That fall I had 625 
species, 
During the following year of post-graduate study at the college, 
where I was also a Latin tutor on the faculty, I met J. C. Arthur, a pro- 
tege of Bessey at Ames, who visited Grinnell to find out if any of us 
were doing botanical work. The acquaintance begun then lasted all 
through the years. A year later he published a list of Iowa plants, both 
native and introduced, and among them he mentioned a few which 1 
alone had found. 
and Mrs. Austin. 
About that time an Austrian gentleman in Europe wanted me to 
gather the flora of the Great West and send him sets to sell. My disgust 
at the thought of spending my life teaching Latin, and my poor health, 
which demanded an out-door life, conspired to suggest my becoming a 
real botanist. More and more the idea obsessed me, until I decided to 
take my life in my hands and go to the wild and woolly West. 
MODERN AND EARLY BOTANIZING 
Botanists of today wonder how men did their work in the early 
Insufficient funds and the conditions of travel were great handi- 
One could never carry enough materials or equip- 
The Lewis and Clark expedition had to 
There was much 
days. 
caps to the collector. 
ment to make fine specimens. 
danger in going through rapid 
thing splashed with water. 
loads on their backs at the portages. 
wrappin aper that we used to 
the onary of the coarse modern paper towels. This paper ba 
about three feet wide and was folded four-double to about the size Be " 
ordinary magazine and tied up in packs. Then the botanist gather 
snips like the modern school girl’s, slipping them into the pack as he had 
