Bo4 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. (1848, 
anxiety. Two more years like the last would probably 
destroy me. If I had an assistant or two, to take de- 
tails off my hands, I might stand it; as it is I cannot. 
Carey spent three months with me last season, and 
was to study and ticket your Texan collection in my 
hands, take a set for his trouble, and Mr. Lowell 
and Mr. S. T. Carey would take what they needed 
and pay for them, so that I could pay your book-bill 
at Fowle’s. The utmost Carey found time to do was 
to throw the collection into orders; there they still lie, 
in the corner! There perhaps they had best lie, now, 
till the collection of the past season reaches me, when 
I will try to study them all together, along with Lind- 
heimer’s collections, a set of which still waits for me 
to study them. Will you wonder that I am a little 
disheartened when, in spite of every effort, I make so 
little progress? And in six weeks I begin to lecture 
in college again; and in April the Garden will require 
more time than I can give it. Such are merely some 
of the things on my hands, some of my cares! Still 
I am interested in you, and in your collections, and 
will do what Iecan. ... 
Then if you will continue to send seeds (pretty 
largely), also bulbs, cacti, tubers, ete., now in early 
spring (and root-cuttings of some vines), taking pains 
that they are sent in a direct way, so as to come 
alive in May, ete., I will get an appropriation allowed 
from the Garden for you. Don’t try other live plants 
till we have better communication with Texas. We 
have sunk money in this already and had to give it 
Wie es 
Forgive my long neglect ; accept my apologies. Ill 
see if I can do any better hereafter, when I have a 
wife to write letters for me. 
