WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 49 



time he appeared to be steadily gaining his strength, he informed me 

 that his own careful observations had led him to a definite conclusion 

 as to how long he had to live and how many months of effective work 

 were left to him. In this latter estimate especially, his prediction 

 proved remarkably accurate. He then outlined to me his tentative 

 plans for the best utilization of his time, and calmly invited my criti- 

 cisms. 



We had been having a series of conferences on the desirability of 

 inaugurating some experimental work on mulching. I had disagreed 

 with his a priori reasoning and did not think that it justified the 

 expense incident to the particular experimentation he had been sug- 

 gesting. This I knew to be very near to his heart, and I offered to 

 set aside my own judgment and hurry the experimentation he de- 

 sired. He declined, however, on the ground that as I alone would 

 be able to use the results, I must accept alone the responsibility for 

 using government facilities and had no right to permit my judgment 

 to be warped or biased, even by the wishes of a dying friend and 

 colleague. 



Next in vividness is my recollection of his unfailing charity. He 

 could and did dislike, and even scorn, ignoble men as well as ignoble 

 actions. But his vision was clear, backed by a well controlled imag- 

 ination, and he was always quick to see the good in men and their 

 motives, and ready to credit them with it. He gave freely and with- 

 out reserve of his vast learning and well of inspiration to others, es- 

 pecially to men of the younger generations with whom he came in 

 contact. Always ready to listen when convinced of earnestness of 

 purpose, he was a patient critic, a wise and considerate counsellor. 



His philosophy was very puzzling to me. He was frankly an ag- 

 nostic. His attitude of mind was to accept facts for exactly what 

 they are, together with such correlations only as could not reasonably 

 be doubted. Yet he would freely argue by analogy and thus be led 

 into conclusions diametrically opposed to the necessary and sufficient 

 deductions by accepted methods. He accepted as facts many ideas 

 which to others were merely speculations, due, I think, to an inher- 

 ent repugnance toward laboratory-bred ideas as compared with those 

 developed in what he regarded as the necessarily broader and more 

 comprehensive vision of the field man. His concept that the soil, 



