NEW ENGLAND 229 



My years at the academy were very happy and 

 useful ones, which later were supplemented by 

 a series of drawing and painting lessons by Prof. 

 Geo. C. Gladw^^n, so long connected with the 

 ^lassachusetts Institute of Technology at Wor- 

 cester. He is now a very old man and I was 

 lately pleased to receive a reminiscent letter from 

 him. These supplemental lessons were taken 

 just fifty- four years ago. 



Two years of my nonacademic education were 

 employed at wood turning and pattern making 

 (from the age of sixteen to eighteen) at the 

 Ames Manufacturing Company, Worcester, 

 Massachusetts. The work was interesting and 

 profitable, yet I preferred an academic educa- 

 tion and the outdoor life which I had enjoyed 

 on my father's farm, but the two years of 

 intensely accurate measurements of forms, sizes, 

 and adaptability have proved very useful in my 

 later inventive work among plants. No doubt 

 the world was open to me in the mechanical field 

 as my two years so well proved; as during the 

 time spent with the Ames Company, I helped to 

 construct one of the first practical self-moving 

 tractors for farm and road use ever operated. 

 The tractor was propelled by steam and when 

 completed moved itself through the streets of 

 Worcester, Massachusetts, for exhibition and 



