50 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE ALBANY MEETING 



the farmers. His first care was to overcome this opposition, which he 

 did in a most characteristic way. He wrote a short report to the Gov- 

 ernor on the condition of the Survey, and placed on exhibition at the 

 State fair a collection of soils and marls, which he nsed in explaining to 

 legislators and farmers the objects of the Survey and its importance to 

 them and to the State. From his previous investigations he was enabled 

 to advise regarding soil peculiarities and needs, and thus won the confi- 

 dence and support of the masses. 



Later, in California he exercised the same tact, ability, and skill in 

 presenting his case, so that he won over to his side successively the farm- 

 ing population, the faculty of the university, the regents of the uni- 

 versity, and the legislature of the State. He lived to see his ideas with 

 reference to the dignity and pedagogical value of agricultural science 

 recognized throughout the country. 



During the years 1869 to 1871 the present writer was an inmate of 

 Hilgard's house, and was thus thrown into close relations with him and 

 his family, in 1869 consisting of himself and his wife and one son — 

 Eugene, Jr. — then about four years old. Before 1871, however, there 

 came another member — a girl. 



This, with the two years following, was a period of great scientific 

 activity with the Doctor, and many of his papers on the geology of Mis- 

 sissippi were written then in his study adjoining the sitting-room, where 

 Mrs. Hilgard, the Senora, as he always called her, was accustomed in the 

 evenings to play on the piano, as she was a most accomplished musician. 

 The Doctor, though busy with his writing, yet kept up Avith the music, 

 as was frequently shown by his applause and request for encores of any- 

 thing that particularly pleased him. The illustrations to these papers, 

 which were to be read before the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, were drawn on large scale on cambric, under his direc- 

 tion, by the present writer, to be displayed before his audiences. 



He was an enthusiastic cultivator of flowers as well as vegetables, fol- 

 lowing in this the Chinese system of fertilizing, which was most effica- 

 cious. He had, consequently, the most luxuriant gardens in Oxford, and 

 they were frequently visited by his Oxford friends. The boy, Eugene, 

 then hardly more than a baby, knew the botanical, though not the com- 

 mon, names of most of the flowers. On one occasion, when some visitors 

 were admiring the flowers, one of them spoke of the partridge berry, then 

 in flower. "That^s not partridge berry," said the child, ^^that's Mitchella 

 rep ens." 



On March 1, 1915, he writes : 



