SANTA ROSA 267 



Moreover, the work of collecting, preserving, 

 and shipping seeds, plants, and bulbs taught 

 practical lessons that were of great importance 

 later in the instruction of my own collectors in 

 foreign lands, who gathered the materials that 

 have had so large a share in the production of 

 new plant forms that finally appeared in my ex- 

 periment gardens. 



It would have pleased me greatly to extend the 

 botanizing explorations to still wider territories, 

 and after the nursery business had come to be 

 fully established, about the year 1884, it would 

 have been quite feasible to do so. 



The work was so organized that it might read- 

 ily have been left to assistants for periods of a 

 year or more, during which I could have traveled 

 and observed the plant products that seemed to 

 invite importation. 



But to have done this would have been to break 

 in on the plan of the projected life work that had 

 already been to some extent interrupted for 

 a period of about eight years, during which 

 I had found it impossible to carry out new ex- 

 periments, except on a limited scale. Longer 

 delay was not to be thought of, being eager to 

 take up the projected work, and it was not 

 deferred for a season longer than was absolutely 

 necessarv. 



