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OBITUARY. 



Frank N. Meyer, the Agricultural Explorer of 

 China and Turkestan, is dead. The following cable- 

 grams received through the State Department from the 

 American Consul in Nanking contain all the informa- 

 tion which we now have about his death - perhaps they 

 are all we shall ever know about the last hours of 

 this remarkable man: 



"June 4, 1918. 



"Prank Meyer, Department Agriculture, disappeared 

 from a steamer in this consular district en route 

 Hankow to Shanghai, June 2nd." 



"June 7, 1918. 



"Yours June fifth. Proceeding with Chinese up 

 river to search for Meyer. Steamer captain states 

 Meyer normal but complained of headache. Have tele- 

 graphed Legation and requested Swingle come to Nan- 

 king to assist in search." 



"June 9, 1918. 

 "Found Meyer's body thirty miles above Wuhu." 



Mr. Meyer had endeared himself to all those who 

 came to know him, because of his real interest not 

 only in plants but in the building up of the human 

 race and the work of making the world more beautiful 

 for that race to live in. 



It is hard to realize that those facinating 

 letters from dusty inns, Buddhist temples and river 

 steamers will cease. We shall receive no more of the 

 characteristic cloth packages addressed always in his 

 own handwriting and containing carefully packed and 

 carefully labelled packets of seeds or cuttings. Un- 

 like the work of most travelers, whose stories cease 

 with the writing of a book of travel, Frank Meyer's 

 work had a concreteness about it which the making of 

 books can never quite approach; for the things which 

 he brought us are scattered all over this country, 

 and other countries as well, - growing into avenues, 

 orchards, forests, hedgerows, broad cultivated fields 

 and flowering borders, and thousands of men and women 

 own them and appreciate them and some will perhaps 

 make a living out of them. 



