1285 



The following letter was the last received from 

 Mr. Meyer; and since it is so characteristic and con- 

 tains so much information on the agricultural sit- 

 uation, it was felt that our cooperators would be in- 

 terested : 



"At last I have been able to break through the 

 lines around Ichang and walked to Kingman, got the 

 stored seeds and baggage there and settled the pay- 

 ments for the pear seeds; then we marched down to 

 Shasi and took a steamer from there and arrived here 

 on the 15th. We were held up a few times and some un- 

 pleasantries were indulged in, but on the whole we 

 could have fared far worse. Of course we passed through 

 villages that had been looted and burned and food was 

 hard to obtain, but to an old hand out here, like my- 

 self, these things have so often been encountered 

 that one is used to them. 



"I did not write you from Ichang of late, because 

 I was not sure that I really could make the trip. The 

 whole country is, so fearfully upset that travel has 

 become a perfect gamble. Sometimes travelers get 

 through, but of ten they have been held up for days and 

 weeks. From Ichang westward all -traffic is stopped 

 and products from Szechuan do not come through any 

 longer for months and months. The losses the people 

 at large suffer must be gigantic; right now tung-oil 

 does not reach Hankow any longer, neither do hides, 

 drugs, silks, etc. 



"Well, personally I am awfully glad that I got 

 away from Ichang; the situation began to depress me. 

 One cannot live for months in an atmosphere of sus- 

 pension without feeling the effects. And as I had 

 cheerless, uncomfortable quarters and lack of sub- 

 stantial food at times, one had both mental and physi- 

 cal discomforts. 



"Well, I just received your very sympathetic 

 letter of February 26. Uncontrollable forces seem to 

 be at work among humanity, and final results, or pos- 

 sibly purposes, are not being revealed as yet, that 

 is, for so far as I can look into this whole titanic 

 cataclysm. 



"Now concerning my own plans, of which you want 

 an outline by about the first of July - well, I can 

 say this, that my ideas are to leave here within a day 

 or two, visit Kiukiang for tung-oil plantations which 

 have been set out nearby, then go down to Nanking pos- 

 sibly, and from there to Shanghai, where I may stay 



