CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY I49 
It was Nuttall’s habit to tear off a little piece of paper and put it in 
with the specimen showing the locality and date. I used this method in 
the first year of my botanizing but discarded it for specimen books in 
which I placed a fragment of the plant together with all data written in 
pencil and the specimen sheet number. These books I made of sheets of 
specimen paper folded double with edges cut and holes punched in the fol } 
through which I passed strings to tie up about 400 pages together. I 
covered each book with oilcloth. This was my method when I was mak- 
errors. I do not favor carrying note-books with numbers for each speci- 
men gathered, for it takes too much time and work in the field, and the 
less field work the better. 
work in the Grand Canyon for the Government in 1894, i 
was instructed by Coville to use the note-book method, but I disregarded 
is too much danger of losing your note-book in the field (as I did once 
in Mexico) and being left completely at sea, all your work worthless 
only a fourth as much. They are unsurpassed for climbing rocks and 
are undesirable only in rock slides or swamps. 
an to use my reason in the light of my own experience, I 
discarded a lot of foolish equipment and evolved what was usable and 
i In place of a trowel or butcher knife to dig up plants, I 
i «ck with one end made into a blade 
one and a half inches wide, each end being only six inches long. Into 
‘ck handle three feet long, so : a ee - 
it and ‘+ for a cane in climbing. I had early learne< t 
. cuks ae ; ioe I must dig up the whole plant, fold it skillfully 
to fit the sheets and still look lifelike. With this pick I could easily get 
any ordinary plant with one blow, or I could use it to kill snakes, if I 
n Arizona, I had the old 
four feet high. To 
in the sun and pis * new 
ur hours of the most strenuous work, sitting in the hot sun 
at noon and shifting the sheets from one place to another, though it 
