296 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



after so many years of strenuous activity. During 

 the whole fifty years of manhood I had taken 

 scarcely more than a few months vacation alto- 

 gether. I might perhaps have continued some 

 line of agriculture in California after I had had a 

 good rest, but I determined at that time to devote 

 the remainder of my life to light, healthful out- 

 door work in order to keep physically fit; and in 

 lending a helpful hand to those who had not been 

 so fortunate as I had been. 



For I have been exceptionally fortunate both in 

 my family life with the one woman of my choice 

 and with the three children whom we lovingly 

 reared together and who remained to gladden our 

 declining years. And no less happy in the pro- 

 fession which chose me so early in life and which 

 has always seemed to me the finest in the world 

 and the only one for which I was by nature fitted. 



By old-fashioned thrift Mrs. Roberts and I 

 had accumulated a little capital at the time we 

 went to Cornell in 1874. My salary was then 

 $2,200 which was gradually raised to $3,000 per 

 year. As time went on I received another $500 

 as Director of the Federal Experiment Station; 

 $500 from the State appropriation for the pro- 

 motion of Agricultural Science and had perquisites 



